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submitted 6 months ago by RGB@group.lt to c/technology@lemmy.world

Google rolled out AI overviews across the United States this month, exposing its flagship product to the hallucinations of large language models.

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[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 26 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

The head of Google *Search right now is the same guy that was head of yahoo search when it was dying. To put all of this in perspective.

[-] habanhero@lemmy.ca 9 points 6 months ago

The head of Google Search

FTFY

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 12 points 6 months ago

Thanks.
Being a CEO must be amazing. You can fail and even bring an entire company down, and keep on getting the same job somewhere else.

[-] snooggums@midwest.social 3 points 6 months ago

He has experience and obviously that means he learned a lesson after failing at a job that requires being a belligerent asshole to get.

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[-] waitmarks@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago
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[-] Disaster@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 months ago

I mean.. yeah layoff a whole bunch of people and start treating your employees like replaceable commodities.. then go ahead and arrogantly deploy technology you don't understand and :surprisepikachu: everything breaks.

But management get to do things without personal consequence, as they'll just lay off more workers to cover their absolute incompetence and things will continue to get worse.

Perhaps we should be replacing C-suite dipshits with AI's instead.

[-] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

TBH I hate the term "hallucination" in this context. It's just more BS anthropomorphizing. More marketing for "AI" (also BS). Can't we just call it like garbage or GIGO or something more accurate? This is nothing new. I know that scientific accuracy is anathema to AI marketing but just saying...

[-] utopiah@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

scientific accuracy is anathema to AI marketing

Even though I agree in this context “hallucination” is actually the scientific term. It might be poorly chosen but in LLM circles if you use the term hallucination, the vast majority of people, will understand precisely what you mean, namely not an error in programming, or a bad dataset, but rather that the language model worked well, generating sentences that are syntactically correct, that are roughly thematically coherent, and yet are factually incorrect.

So I obviously don't want to support marketing BS, in AI or elsewhere, but here sadly it matches the scientific naming.

PS: FWIW I believed I made a similar critic few months, or maybe even years, ago. IMHO what's more important is arguably questioning the value of LLMs themselves, but then it might not be as evident for many people who are benefiting from the current buzz.

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[-] KeenFlame@feddit.nu 9 points 6 months ago

We don't choose. It's decided to be the term for this. Computer bugs aren't bugs. Etc etc. It's just what the scientists called it

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[-] MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago

On the other hand, all these AI errors by Google have made for some great memes recently.

[-] pkmkdz@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 months ago

LLM aka a Large Language Memes

[-] gari_9812@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Seems like LLM's true value is comedy value

[-] adam_y@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

Can we swap out the word "hallucinations" for the word "bullshit"?

I think all AI/LLM stuf should be prefaced as "someone down the pub said..."

So, "someone down the pub said you can eat rocks" or, "someone down the pub said you should put glue on your pizza".

Hallucinations are cool, shit like this is worthless.

[-] Eheran@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

No, hallucination is a really good term. It can be super confident and seemingly correct but still completely made up.

[-] A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

I think delusion might be a better word. You can hallucinate and know it's not real

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[-] kbin_space_program@kbin.run 2 points 6 months ago

It is, but it isnt applicable in at least the glue-pizza situation as the probable source comment has been found on reddit.

A better use of the term might be how when you try to get Bing's image creator to make "Battletech" art, you just mostly get really obvious Warhammer 40k Space Marines and occasionally Iron Maiden album art.

[-] snooggums@midwest.social 1 points 6 months ago

That is just being WRONG.

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[-] kbin_space_program@kbin.run 2 points 6 months ago

Google search isnt a hallucination now though.

It instead proves that LLMs just reproduce from the model they are supplied with. For example, the "glue on pizza" comment is from a reddit user called FuckSmith roughly 11 years ago.

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[-] cordlesslamp@lemmy.today 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Today I caught myself unconsciously went to Duckduckgo to make a search (even tho the browser start page is already google).

Thinking back, I've been using duckduckgo more than google, and often because I can't find what I'm looking for on Google but ads and autogenerated fake webpages.

History will prove it once again, there's no such thing as "too big to fail".

[-] vonbaronhans@midwest.social 3 points 6 months ago

DDG is just Bing. At least as far as the core search algorithm goes.

Unfortunately, my experience is the opposite. I tried to use DDG for about a month and consistently found myself giving up, Googling instead, and finding a relevant stack overflow page or reddit thread or whatever on the first page of results.

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[-] tb_@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

There's no better time to switch your default search engine!

[-] biofaust@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

This is what I love about Mike Judge's work. It turns out to be always the best metaphor/reference/prophecy of the boring dystopia. Since 1999.

[-] Bahnd@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago

Idiocracy is the most unrealistic sci-fi/apocolyptic film ever made. President Comacho finds the most qualified person to help with a crisis, asks them for advice and then doesnt take credit for it. Noone put in a position of power would ever do that.

[-] biofaust@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

He used Not Sure as a smokescreen since the beginning, the whole point is that he never really understood what was going on. I am quite sure that American presidents are approaching that level of idiocy.

[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 6 points 6 months ago

It's just a fucking Chinese Room

[-] androogee@midwest.social 3 points 6 months ago

Look my wife is gonna dispute that charge.

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[-] SulaymanF@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

It’s not hallucination, the proper word is Confabulation. Can we as a collective fix this now before we get stuck with the wrong word for the next 30 years?

[-] sudo42@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

"Hey, we just promised you answers. We never promised you correct answers." -- Google Marketing, probably.

[-] Plopp@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

"Besides, the more incorrect answers - the more time users will spend on our site and use our service to get the correct answer = more ads shown = more profit!"

[-] Nualkris@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago

Why does search need to be AI? I've had no problems finding any information I wanted under the former process.

[-] best_username_ever@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 months ago

You obviously haven’t used the ~~web3 nocode blockchain NFT~~ AI enough to have an informed opinion.

[-] kibiz0r@midwest.social 4 points 6 months ago

Can I super-mega-ultra upvote this?

It's the same playbook as ever. Doubt can only be explained by ignorance, failure can only be explained by under-committing,

The only way to have a "valid" opinion is to have already bought-in and be actively selling other people on it. It's the same mentality as a cult or a pyramid scheme.

[-] Bogasse@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 months ago

I think it's been a long time since digital companies tried to solve actual problems.

[-] gcheliotis@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

It’s become more efficient to get basic info on virtually any topic by just asking an LLM like ChatGPT and that could be a serious threat to Google Search. People might form the habit of asking AIs for everything and then go to Google Search only when they want to dig deeper / find relevant articles etc. So I assume they added their own AI right into Search in an effort to continue being the first (and perhaps only) place one goes to for information.

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 months ago

Testing in Prod. Stay classy, Google.

“The vast majority of AI Overviews provide high quality information, with links to dig deeper on the web,” said a Google spokesperson in an emailed statement to Gizmodo, noting many of the examples the company has seen have been from uncommon queries.

This is entirely fair. There is no way that anyone at Google could have anticipated that humans would search for strange things on the internet.

[-] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 months ago

The vast majority of AI Overviews provide high quality information

According to some fuckwitted Google rep, and I wouldn't trust them any further than I could throw them.

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[-] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago

The AI overview has told me so many lies. You thought Facebook made people stupid? Buckle in!

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this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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