Do you think search results have become better or worse with the introduction of AI?
#Search #AI #Computer #Windows #Linux #Vivaldi
@jon@vivaldi.net Where’s the entry for “Much Much Worse”!!!
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@jon@vivaldi.net Only tried this on Brave Search. Was kinda useful with web references.
@jon@vivaldi.net TBF they had started going to shit already a few years earlier, but AI has just made it worse.
@jon@vivaldi.net I think it depends on the search engine being used.
@jon@vivaldi.net About the same. Before, you had to do “topic site:reddit.com” to find results. These days, you just type in what you are searching and the AI just matter of factly regurgitates whatever someone else said on Reddit five years ago. #search #reddit #computer #linux
Linus Torvalds: 90% of AI marketing is hype
https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/29/linus_torvalds_ai_hype/?td=rt-3a
Definitely worse. But I think the bigger problem is the amount of what a search engine returns being AI drivel that has been seo’d to fuck. Sometimes it feels like actively using an AI tool is the only option to ferret out a real answer in a timely fashion (which is also a problem.)
I have a horrible feeling that we are all to soon going to find ourselves with an internet that can only be reasonably interpreted through an AI intermediary like some kind of familiar spirit.
Good thing those can always be trusted right?
@jon@vivaldi.net Do you mean to ask if the internet is filling up with AI generated content? Or whether or not AI summaries provide value to search results? Because AI summaries do not replace or change search results themselves, they are added to the results.
@rspfau@ecoevo.social , I guess both. I have really bad experiences with the summaries myself.
@jon@vivaldi.net I dont think it’s possible to quantify (beyond gut feeling…which is ver biased and often wrong) what impact AI is having on search results. AI summaries can only be evaluated against what we know to be true. So there are difficulties there also without doing a well designed experiment.
@rspfau@ecoevo.social , we all evaluate based on our own experience. You may or may not agree with what other people are seeing, but that is what they are seeing.
In my case, I have been on the Internet since the start of the Web and IMHO there has been a clear change.
@jon@vivaldi.net This is actually why science was invented. People’s subjective experiences are very often wrong. It’s what we think we see. I’m wrong all the time because of my biases and preconceptions.
@rspfau@ecoevo.social , a poll is actually for the purpose of asking people what they think. That is what I am interested in.
I do think AI has made results a lot worse. Partially because of the summaries and partially because there is a lot of AI generated content early in the results. I am finding it harder to find stuff I am looking for, that I know is there.
@jon@vivaldi.net Something that I’ve been wondering the past several months is if anyone has attempted to objectively tried to address the question of quality of search results. I dont even know if one can objectively test one search engine against another much less the past versus the present. Do you know of any efforts to do this?
@rspfau@ecoevo.social , I think it is hard to do really. Unless you can recognize AI and other SEO generated stuff. If there is more of that, the results are, IMHO, objectively worse. Most of the time one is not interested in AI stuff, but rather information from the source. Anything else is, objectively, worse.
@jon@vivaldi.net It depends, on one hand the ability to summarize multiple searh results is a neat feature that saves time, but on the other hand SEO spam has gotten worse.
My experience is that the summary is wrong or not accurate more often that not and clearly not the best answer. I have learned that trusting it for even the most basic of answers, such as which terminal a flight leaves from, to not be trustworthy.
@jon@vivaldi.net Just because the search engine indexes it doesn’t mean it is true. It is the same for AI systems.
@JoeBecomeTheSun@vivaldi.net , I think most would expect that if there is a framed answer, that it would be the best one…
@jon@vivaldi.net Just because most consensus answer is at the top doesn’t mean it is true, only that the search engine recommended it. Ideally, a search engine will show you in order most relevant to least relevant. That is what a search engine is for and what it should do. If I search for something I should have a reasonable expectation that the content was ranked by some objective standard rather than a flimsy algorithm or human reviewer. I also have a reasonable expectation to not have porn and malware advertised to me, but Google doesn’t get the message.
@jon@vivaldi.net worse, but it’s indirect: AI has made the generation of SEO spam much more scalable than search engines’ ability to detect it.
@jon@vivaldi.net As for Google, I don’t see any difference in search results before or after AI was introduced. However, the AI-derived text that appears above the search results is annoying.
@jon I made use of DDG’s AI after I couldn’t quite answer my hard question in the results and it basically came to the same conclusion as me several times. I think its worthwhile to use AI for questions of less importance to save some time. I haven’t noticed any degeneration of ddg’s search results.
@jon@vivaldi.net Search results on “traditional” search engines are terrible. I use @kagihq@mastodon.social and I really like it, but AI helps me quickly find the right information when I know what I’m looking for but I don’t remember the exact solution. I don’t trust AI enough to ask it about critical things (e.g. health).
@jon@vivaldi.net I mean, when AI search results talk about putting glue on pizza and eating a rock a day, you know things are off to a shaky start! 😂
