Is Google Right?

[barnakiel]

Now that media create reality, are we still considered sailors?


Cheers,
b.

[Caribbeachbum]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Now that media create reality, are we still considered sailors?

Cheers,
b.

The media reports reality. With the exception of the cartoon, which is, well, a cartoon, the other images are real boats. But to be fair, unless you are a Russian oligarch or Steve Jobs, they are probably not relevant to what you were searching for.

[Sailmonkey]

To be fair, the name of that thing is “A”, so google is showing you exactly what you’re looking for. “a sailing boat”

[barnakiel]

But why is google building its search engine around millionaires? These are few and probably hardly ever reach out to google in search of anything.

I think, it is simply that people like Herr Abramovich ask Sergey, over the dinner, for a fancy favour. Next morning BUMP and your superyacht pops-up tops in the search.

Expect now Melania to come tops of google searches when you type 'a woman' and Silvio to populate all top 20 image slots when you type 'a male stud'.

Favours, ah, favours!

;-) ;-) ;-)

b.

[hpeer]

Nope, not one Melina. But for “a male stud”, well I can’t post the pics here! Yuck!

[Sailmonkey]

If you just type “sailing boat” the results are as you expect.

I don’t believe that google is building their search engine to biased to the toys of millionaires, rather your search string most accurately matches with the sailing boat A

[barnakiel]

Yup! All good tips. I must hone my google compatibility skills somewhat.

You may remember, at the beginnings, when one typed 'God' into yahoo search, it returned 'there is no God'. And look where is yahoo today? ;-)

b.

[john61ct]

Google makes no claims.

It just uses constantly changing AI / algorithms to reflect the hive mind back to us.

The number of inbound links to a URL is still the most important ranking factor.

But now our own search / browsing / email / location / phone calls / F2F conversations etc are also used to refine the results to be more useful.

And to sell us stuff of course.

Point is your search results are not the same as mine.

[cyan]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Google makes no claims.

It just uses constantly changing AI / algorithms to reflect the hive mind back to us.

The number of inbound links to a URL is still the most important ranking factor.

But now our own search / browsing / email / location / phone calls / F2F conversations etc are also used to refine the results to be more useful.

And to sell us stuff of course.

Point is your search results are not the same as mine.

Google plays mind games with reality and history itself. Some of these are subtle and some are not. "We" collectively gave google the power to change history books, because history is becoming only what we see in a search engine. It could be dangerous one day, methinks.
Don't believe me? Okay, if you are in the US, search for "American inventors" and tell me what you see...

[john61ct]

As I said, Google makes no claims.

It presents a list of popular links.

Obviously it is up to you to determine the validity of sources you trust yourself.

This is not a difficult process.

Someone who just randomly expects "the truth" to be spelled out at the top of the results does not understand the purpose of a search engine.

[cyan]

Originally Posted by john61ct

As I said, Google makes no claims.

It presents a list of popular links.

Obviously it is up to you to determine the validity of sources you trust yourself.

This is not a difficult process.

You make a very good point about the "no claims".
However, it would be quite naive to assume that you are simply seeing a list of "popular links". Someone here mentioned that it would be too difficult for google to carefully slant searches given the person and the subject. That type of common thinking causes those of us who have actually written AI code to smirk like Austin Powers.

It might take another generation before we look back and laugh at how eagerly we all accepted the manipulation of secret algorithms in these early days of the internet, in the early 21st century. The bright-side is that many of us here will be going to seed on some tropical island by then, sans electronics, sewing an old sail by hand. That's my plan, anyway.

[john61ct]

I don't think the trend is toward laughter.

More likely if aware at all, we will be afraid to acknowledge that we know.

[Attikos]

I thought the search phrase used for that must have been "world's ugliest pseudosailboat."

[Perfect Ride]

Love this one from google image search of "a sailing boat":
https://www.octuri.com/en/aircraft-o.../flying-yacht/

[hpeer]

Someone spent good money and years of practice to learn how to draw something utterly stupid.