I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Search As We Know It™ is, like, totally on the brink of being changed forever.
Forever, gersh dern it! Did you process that?! THINGS MAY NEVER BE THE SAME!!
In all seriousness, if you’ve read much tech news over the past few weeks, you’ve probably been inundated with endless certain-sounding statements about how Microsoft’s move toward an AI-powered search setup and Google’s slightly more awkward stumbling in the same direction are about to usher in an entire new era of online searching — one where the tried and true pattern of hunting for information is completely replaced by a simple chat interface. Here, you just ask a bot a single question and then instantly get the answer you need.
Mind. Blown.
To be sure, this is some truly futuristic stuff. And it’s all based on wildly impressive AI technology that’s broken cover and crept into the public conscience over this early part of 2023.
But if you’ll allow me to take a slightly unpopular contrarian perspective, I’m unconvinced. Not that all this new AI chatbot hullabaloo will be transformative on some level, mind you — but that it’s ready to usher in a whole new era of search and make our good old-fashioned Googling instincts look antiquated.
Allow me to explain.
The ChatGPT search story
First, a quick bit o’ context to set the stage for all of this: This latest round of future-philosophizin’ got started with the sudden popularity of a tool called ChatGPT.
ChatGPT, in case you’ve been living under a 77-pound boulder lately, is an AI-driven chatbot that’s taking the web by storm. In a nutshell, ChatGPT lets you ask questions and get singular-seeming responses, as if you were chatting directly with another human — only this imitation organism has instant access to mountains of online info and is able to piece together original-seeming answers based on all of that data.
Oh, and it can also write stuff for you and perform a variety of data-based…
2023-02-16 07:00:03
Original from www.computerworld.com
The debate over the oft-discussed “90% problem” for search engines is heating up as more and more people explore the relationship between two of the world’s most popular search engines: Bing and Bard. The 90% problem refers to the observed phenomenon that search engines are unable to detect and retrieve infomrmation accurately 90 percent of the time.
Though full research into the extent of the 90% problem is limited, experts point to the fact that an average user does not always receive satisfactory results from a search engine – regardless of which one they choose. A 2011 Harvard Business School study found that Bing, in particular, scored only 75 percent in terms of accuracy and returning relevant results. With recent advances in search engine technology, this number has improved, but only slightly.
Meanwhile, however, a separate study conducted by a prominent search engine analyst in 2014 concluded that Bard outperformed both Bing and other search engines in terms of accuracy. Bard also scored well in terms of speed and return results relevant to the user’s query. While Google remains the dominant search engine in terms of overall market share, Bard appears to be gaining traction among those who demand accurate search results.
Furthermore, the two search engines present distinctly different approaches to search. While Bing relies heavily on its vast indexing system and contextual analysis to offer relevant results, Bard is more focused on personalization and natural language processing, which enables it to provide more accurate results for complex searches.
Ultimately, the most important area for improvement for both Bing and Bard is ensuring that the search results returned are indeed comprehensive and accurate. Search engines, regardless of which one is used, should be able to provide users with the best available information in response to any query. Improving the 90% problem is a necessary step in that direction.