Microsoft tells people to prepare for AI search engine that goes Bing! Microsoft has announced new AI chatbot-powered search features supporting its search engine Bing and the browser Edge on Tuesday, promising to revamp the way netizens surf information on the internet. The revised Bing search engine uses large language models to summarize information from web pages. It's designed to be more …
That's the problem, Google only thinks of AI...they have yet to put an AI product out for general use by the public. Google is starting to come off as a bit of a bullshit merchant because we hear a lot about Google AI, yet nobody outside of Google has ever used it.
Google AI is basically the "Bandersnatch" of this generation. Loads of promises, tons of marketing not a whiff of an actual live demonstration.
I stopped using Google last year because the monetisation reached a point where it was genuinely unusable. If it's not direct spamming via ads inserted into search results in such a way that it's almost impossible to tell the two apart, it's the simple fact that nearly all websites now are just designed to manipulate Google search rankings with generic copy-and-paste spam.
In 2023 the most reliable way to get the answer you need is to tack "+ reddit" onto the end of the query, which is a new low.
I bypass Google entirely and just look for a Reddit community on Reddit...I can't remember the last time I actually used Google search or any search engine for that matter. Between YouTube and Reddit you can find pretty much anything. In the same way, between Amazon and eBay you can buy almost anything...you won't necessarily get the best price, but it i'll be on your doorstep in under a week most of the time.
I think that search engine you're looking for is hidden behind the URL duckduckgo.com
And with a bit of luck, there will still be browsers around (that's not too exotic) supporting that, and not just some newfangled AI silliness.
Just the thought of some voice based search engine makes me cringe. By the time the voice has reached the first third of the sentence, you would have finished reading the whole section.
That's why I can't stand a podcast either, I haven't got time for that, give me a good article instead, and I'll read it in no time.
Seems I need the grumpy old man icon myself ;)
I just asked (because right now I need to know!) 'Is there a suitable replacement for a Microchip ENC424J600-I/ML' both to Bing and to DDG, which I believe is driven by Bing anyway.
DDG produced the list of sites you'd expect: Microchip and the big suppliers (Digikey, Farnell etc) while Bing produced the Microchip site, a short list of largely irrelevant 'Explore Further' links (Recommended to you based on what's popular) and, er, the big suppliers. But it started with Mouser.
So far, not greatly inspiring... it did find a number of drivers and a very general stack exchange thread, but nothing actually useful. Changing 'suitable' to 'compatible' didn't make any difference.
Oh well, back to looking at datasheets...
One thing I have never understood with Bing..
A few years ago, they did an advert where you can search bing. Any time I used it, it produced good results that were both accurate and relevant. They clearly have the tech to do this, so why, when I use Bing, do I get a load of results that have little or no relevance to what I ask?
so why, when I use Bing, do I get a load of results that have little or no relevance to what I ask?
It's a matter of priorities. So you'll get a wiki page explaining what a microchip is. You'll get a slew of sponsored links to sellers of microchips. Including probably McCains. If you try..
ENC424J600-I/ML replacement
you'll probably get a list of random links because for some reason, the 'search' engine will exclude the part number. Repeated searches replacing replacement with terms like 'Drop-in', 'compatible' etc will probably produce increasingly less relevant results. Then I tend to find with more natural-language queries, you're even more at the mercy of the algorithm. It's fun sometimes to discover results it gives you don't contain any of the terms you were searching for. Oh for the days of Alta Vista when searching seemed easier on simple terms.
I agree 100% with this. I'd rather read an article than listen to a podcast for many things. Much better use of time. Also lets me digest what is read. Also like Duck Duck Go. I also do use Google. I would rather write my own stuff or choose what I want to read instead of artificial intelligence and auto complete. I can see AI directing people towards advertisers. Humans are capable of making our own decisions and interpretations. Also doing things for ourselves. If do much is done for us, we become slaves of the machines and tech companies instead of their bosses.
"Can everyone please stop suggesting duckduckgo"
Totally agree. I've always found it to US centric, it's content filter to aggressive (you often have to turn of safe search for even slightly offensive sites) and it's not better than Bing, probably because it uses MS back end.
I've always found StartPage much better, although it can be a tad slow sometimes.
I guess YMMV, as with anything. For me, DuckDuckGo results usually adequate (not stellar, but good enough) for most normal usage. So I recommend it when the main goal is to walk away from Google.
But I'll agree 100% on the US focus: searchs in other languages (Spanish for example), or searchs for stuff in a specific country other than US are dismal.
Never tried StartPage... will take it for a spin this week.
I used to use StartPage until they sold out to some advertising outfit, or something like that, and started doing dodgy stuff that meant it was no longer “no evil”-like.
Dunno how much of this was true - couldn’t be bothered to look into it too deep
I tend to use neeva.com now. I’ll see how that goes
Uhm, DDG has a great and simple option for country search / all regions (whilst at least last time I checked, in Google you had to go look for it as a setting someplace, with Bing I don't know if it exists), with a nice, tidy dropdown list where the countries I want to search in is listed, in addition to an all all regions option.
As for my searches, I get much more relevant results than I get in Google where I used to have to do all sorts of black magic to get what I wanted, not what Google wanted to show me. However, I understand what works for me may not work for you, BUT I am free to suggest it when it is relevant for the topic at hand.
I don't understand this profiling for advertising purposes. In any reasonable assessment, I expect data-collectors to have deduced that I am never going to buy from an unsolicited advert and therefore it would be a cost-saving to not include me in the processing.
You have to wonder, are the owners/managers/programmers of these search-behemoths influenced by their own personal search-results and the consequent advertisements? It just seems to be a waste.
PLEASE come back Altavista :-(
I always preferred HotBot
Pretty sure AskGeeves was the first time I encountered terrible paid for results.
Search: BBQ
Results: Buy BBQ with Goldfish credit cards.
Search: Who is Google?
Results: Buy Google with Goldfish credit cards
Search How to dispose of a body
Results Buy disposable dead body's with Goldfish credit card.
I always thought the indicator that something has happened was a 'ping'.
As in "This is the machine that goes 'PING!', and this is the most expensive machine in the hospital. Aren't you lucky?"
Maybe things go "Bing" in left pondian.
Personally my brain responds "Chandler?" Which seems appropriate as whenever I accidentally use it I look at the results and think "Could it BE anymore annoying?"
I was thinking of the machine that goes ding.
The Doctor: Tracked you down with this. This is my Timey-Wimey detector. Goes ding when there’s stuff. Also, it can boil an egg at thirty paces. Whether you want it to or not, actually. So I’ve learned to stay away from hens. It’s not pretty when they blow (Icon).
I search for a specific term and .....
The change it to a common spelling and give me rubbish.
Was looking for details of a tool we use which is a common word with the authors initial in front.
Google was absolutely useless. DDK gave me the correct answer with the website top search.
Oh and Google is still new, I was shocked when it took out Yahoo!
Remember Clippy the animated assistant that the first thing everyone ever asked it was "How do I turn the office assistant off ... permanently?"
Well it's coming to search engines
I wonder how many search queries will be "How do I turn the AI assistant off ?"
Or just switch to DuckDuckGo
Google used to work well up until a few years ago where they started removing and censoring people, terms and sites.
Rather than giving the best search results they are concentrating on ADS and curated content at the behest of western governments.
I know this will sound like a joke but I've been resorting lately to use Yandex when I can't find anything else on Google/Bing that approaches what I'm looking for, specially when looking for old newspaper articles, and no, I'm usually not looking for "controversial things".
I'm looking of an image, if one exists, of a specific mid C18th presbyterian clergyman ("Captain" Eden in Yorks Arch Soc Record Series CXVII on archive.org).
Search string to "Ask me anything" :get an image william eden 18th century presbyterian minister of holmfirth and elland not anthoney edan and not baron auckland
The first two entries are Dictionary of National Biography and ancestry for William Eden 1st baron Auckland, then People also ask about entries for Anthony Eden and his father, then Wikipedia entry for baron Auckland, then numerous entries for Anthony Eden.
An answer of "Can't find one" might have been a correct response. Scads of responses to what follows the word "not" isn't.
Back in the 1980s I was using a search engine that understood "not". I wonder how much more refinement is needed of AI before we get back to the functionality of those heady days.
Sometimes rational cynicism about hyped technology can look like prophecy.
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