The other day, I wanted to see if alcohol-free port existed.
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Is there any search engine left that lists genuine web pages?
I’ve resorted to searching Wikipedia directly lately, a lot, since it’s human-curated.
@david_chisnall @albertcardona
Duck Duck Go?
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@david_chisnall @albertcardona
Duck Duck Go?
DuckDuckGo is what I've used for years, it's less bad in many ways, but it's funded by ads and doesn't filter out slop webpages.
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DuckDuckGo is what I've used for years, it's less bad in many ways, but it's funded by ads and doesn't filter out slop webpages.
@albertcardona @MarkBrigham @david_chisnall Duck duck works well for me, although unfortunately even academic sites sometimes seem to provide AI generated material. I often go straight to wikipedia as well, and can never decide whether to respond to their appeals for donations or not. I use Ecosia on my phone, which also works fine. I can't even imagine using Google!
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@albertcardona @MarkBrigham @david_chisnall Duck duck works well for me, although unfortunately even academic sites sometimes seem to provide AI generated material. I often go straight to wikipedia as well, and can never decide whether to respond to their appeals for donations or not. I use Ecosia on my phone, which also works fine. I can't even imagine using Google!
@ORIOliver @MarkBrigham @david_chisnall
Wikipedia is very well funded at the moment, so just ignore for now. Most of the Wikimedia Foundation's funds arrive from big donations, as far as I know. See:
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@david_chisnall it's like replacing libraries with smoke shops filled with tabloids
@flyingpenguin @david_chisnall
That was active UK government policy 2010-24. -
The other day, I wanted to see if alcohol-free port existed. The top search link went to a page of the 20 best alcohol-free ports! Except none of them were port, they were all spirits (not even other fortified wines). The ‘AI’ summary described a fictional process for removing alcohol from port and had two citations, neither of which supported the claim. The next 30 pages were all LLM slop that talked about what port is for a long time before saying that there’s no alcohol-free version.
I have been using the web since the mid ‘90s and it has never been this bad. Anyone advocating for ‘AI’ is advocating for a future where this damage is spread to all facets of life.
@david_chisnall I have to search for names a lot at work to make sure the spellings are correct, and it's forever telling me I've misspelled something and was actually looking for Jeff Goldblum or something equally nonsensical. Last one was checking a racing driver called Jensen Mason, it told me in a very patronising way that actually his name was Jenson Button.
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The other day, I wanted to see if alcohol-free port existed. The top search link went to a page of the 20 best alcohol-free ports! Except none of them were port, they were all spirits (not even other fortified wines). The ‘AI’ summary described a fictional process for removing alcohol from port and had two citations, neither of which supported the claim. The next 30 pages were all LLM slop that talked about what port is for a long time before saying that there’s no alcohol-free version.
I have been using the web since the mid ‘90s and it has never been this bad. Anyone advocating for ‘AI’ is advocating for a future where this damage is spread to all facets of life.
@david_chisnall More information does not necessarily mean a narrower view. The real issue is not to let AI make decisions in place of our own judgment. The value of AI lies not in thinking for us, but in giving us access to more information so that we can examine, compare, and judge it for ourselves. Perhaps the challenge of the future will not be a lack of information, but our ability to distinguish truth from information that is merely convincing.
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The other day, I wanted to see if alcohol-free port existed. The top search link went to a page of the 20 best alcohol-free ports! Except none of them were port, they were all spirits (not even other fortified wines). The ‘AI’ summary described a fictional process for removing alcohol from port and had two citations, neither of which supported the claim. The next 30 pages were all LLM slop that talked about what port is for a long time before saying that there’s no alcohol-free version.
I have been using the web since the mid ‘90s and it has never been this bad. Anyone advocating for ‘AI’ is advocating for a future where this damage is spread to all facets of life.
@david_chisnall Once did a search for local pubs that served Gluten free beer. It sent me to a slop page (now gone) that had instructions on how to make beer from a pub tap GF. It involved weird stuff, such as holding a cigarette lighter under the glass until the beer started bubbling.
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@david_chisnall I agree with everything you've written here. As a sidenote, some years ago we also tried to get hold of some alcohol-free port for a Christmas guest to have with a cheese board, and we couldn't find any anywhere.
I guess you just can't dealcoholise port without destroying whatever gives it its distinct flavour.
️tbh… port basically is just wine, but with more alcohol AND sugar. (adding brandy to wine, to increase alc thus killing the yeast, thus stop the fermentation that creates alc from sugar)
It sounds kinda obvious how that might be hard to replicate in taste/feel without alcohol?
I had some pretty good alcohol-free fizzy wine recently and I liked it better than most traditional sparkling wines. (I’m not a big fan of those, so that might be onto me). Not because it was the same, but because it was different?
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The other day, I wanted to see if alcohol-free port existed. The top search link went to a page of the 20 best alcohol-free ports! Except none of them were port, they were all spirits (not even other fortified wines). The ‘AI’ summary described a fictional process for removing alcohol from port and had two citations, neither of which supported the claim. The next 30 pages were all LLM slop that talked about what port is for a long time before saying that there’s no alcohol-free version.
I have been using the web since the mid ‘90s and it has never been this bad. Anyone advocating for ‘AI’ is advocating for a future where this damage is spread to all facets of life.
@david_chisnall you should be all for it, david, it makes your hardware based security much more valuable if people are going to vibe shit the code that runs on it.
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AI circular finance fraud & fossil fuel funded fascism would drive anyone to drink.
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@david_chisnall More information does not necessarily mean a narrower view. The real issue is not to let AI make decisions in place of our own judgment. The value of AI lies not in thinking for us, but in giving us access to more information so that we can examine, compare, and judge it for ourselves. Perhaps the challenge of the future will not be a lack of information, but our ability to distinguish truth from information that is merely convincing.
I don't want that future.
I grew up learning from books, but how do you learn when nothing is reliable?
Imagine picking up a dictionary as a kid, and every 100th word has an incorrect definition.
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The other day, I wanted to see if alcohol-free port existed. The top search link went to a page of the 20 best alcohol-free ports! Except none of them were port, they were all spirits (not even other fortified wines). The ‘AI’ summary described a fictional process for removing alcohol from port and had two citations, neither of which supported the claim. The next 30 pages were all LLM slop that talked about what port is for a long time before saying that there’s no alcohol-free version.
I have been using the web since the mid ‘90s and it has never been this bad. Anyone advocating for ‘AI’ is advocating for a future where this damage is spread to all facets of life.
@david_chisnall Much deserved, just for looking for alcohol-free port
Curiosity made me try a de-alcoholised wine some time ago. I found it quite disappointing.
Maybe it wasn't served at the right temperature, but despite all the expected flavors were as expected, the absence of alcohol made it a very flat grapes juice.
I suppose alcohol is a strong (primary?) vehicle (chemically/physically speaking) to scents and tastes, boosting their channeling to our sensory experience. -
The other day, I wanted to see if alcohol-free port existed. The top search link went to a page of the 20 best alcohol-free ports! Except none of them were port, they were all spirits (not even other fortified wines). The ‘AI’ summary described a fictional process for removing alcohol from port and had two citations, neither of which supported the claim. The next 30 pages were all LLM slop that talked about what port is for a long time before saying that there’s no alcohol-free version.
I have been using the web since the mid ‘90s and it has never been this bad. Anyone advocating for ‘AI’ is advocating for a future where this damage is spread to all facets of life.
OMG it's all so, so bad.
All those pages that first discuss what a table is, what it's used for, where you can buy it, that some people et cetera, and finally say that you can paint it with paint.🤮🤮🤮
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The other day, I wanted to see if alcohol-free port existed. The top search link went to a page of the 20 best alcohol-free ports! Except none of them were port, they were all spirits (not even other fortified wines). The ‘AI’ summary described a fictional process for removing alcohol from port and had two citations, neither of which supported the claim. The next 30 pages were all LLM slop that talked about what port is for a long time before saying that there’s no alcohol-free version.
I have been using the web since the mid ‘90s and it has never been this bad. Anyone advocating for ‘AI’ is advocating for a future where this damage is spread to all facets of life.
The entire first page of search results has become AI slop now. For any subject.
Reddit is about the only thing I trust these days because I know it's actual humans.
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The other day, I wanted to see if alcohol-free port existed. The top search link went to a page of the 20 best alcohol-free ports! Except none of them were port, they were all spirits (not even other fortified wines). The ‘AI’ summary described a fictional process for removing alcohol from port and had two citations, neither of which supported the claim. The next 30 pages were all LLM slop that talked about what port is for a long time before saying that there’s no alcohol-free version.
I have been using the web since the mid ‘90s and it has never been this bad. Anyone advocating for ‘AI’ is advocating for a future where this damage is spread to all facets of life.
@david_chisnall To some extent, this was an irritating trend before AI added a new layer of crap and made it easier. At some point, the evil search engine decided that "authoritative" pages should get more weight, so now a query like "how do I do X" gets a frigging book on the meaning of X, the history of X, trends in X, and maybe, just maybe the answer you want. Meanwhile half a dozen pages that say "you do X by following these steps: 1, 2, 3" and nothing else are fucking buried.
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S sebastian@social.itu.dk shared this topic
