Do you think search results have become better or worse with the introduction of AI?
#Search #AI #Computer #Windows #Linux #Vivaldi
@jon@vivaldi.net While I do understand the sentiment, I think the problem with search has been more the ads than anything else
Things like the AI overviews are bad, but search has been more or less powered by AI for a while, it’s really just been this new bout of generative AI where they’re really saying it out loud
But even without that GenAI, search results have been getting significantly worse for a bit now
@jon@vivaldi.net Where’s the entry for “Much Much Worse”!!!
@jon@vivaldi.net Beautiful
@jon@vivaldi.net About the same
@jon@vivaldi.net I use AI above search machines. 🤖
@jon@vivaldi.net Difficult to say IMHO. I rarely use AI for search but apparently it happens in the background a lot. If I search for a specific thing it can get worse (interpreting for a different search phrase) or better (actually finding things). Dedicated AI searches are also a mixed bag. I have bad hallucinations as well as sources I was unable to find the traditional way.
@AndreasSebayang@chaos.social , for me, the most visible parts when it comes to AI is the box at the top, where some answer is selected to be the best answer. This often gives a bad or inaccurate answer.
In addition to that are actual search results, that are AI generated. Often I will have to go down the list of search results to find what I was looking for. The AI generated results are pushing what I am looking for down on the list. Part of the issue is also that search engines are giving regency a big priority, which means that more static content will just disappear.
@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! 😂
@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 worse, but it’s indirect: AI has made the generation of SEO spam much more scalable than search engines’ ability to detect it.
@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.
Surely you jest.
@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@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.
@JoeBecomeTheSun@vivaldi.net
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 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
Linus Torvalds: 90% of AI marketing is hype
https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/29/linus_torvalds_ai_hype/?td=rt-3a
