No. of Recommendations: 12
I've been using the 'Google is woke' blowback to add substantially to my position. The Gemini release was a real slip up, but I doubt it matters 5 - 10 years from now.
Being identified as the woke search engine by lots of conservative commentators is obviously not helpful. David Sacks, the conservative/libertarian tech bro, imagines DEI "commissars" at Google who, like Communist Party commissars of the old Soviet Union, can suppress dissent through intimidation. If that were true, it would be a serious problem, but Sundar Pichai's response to the recent embarrassments provides some hope that he understands the process needs fixing. There have been some embarrassing results at Chat GPT as well, although not to this extent. These are early days.
The bigger problem in my opinion is the evolution of search from links, which can be bought as advertising, to text, which does not lend itself to embedded advertising quite as seamlessly. A new offering called Perplexity is recently fashionable in Silicon Valley. I created a permanent tab for it and now I go there when I want a text answer to a query. It embeds footnotes in its answers which can be clicked to generate the source material. I have only the free version, but I've been impressed by its usefulness. There are still times when I want links and use Google, but when I need something explained, I'm increasingly trying Perplexity first.
I tried an experiment this morning, asking both Perplexity and Gemini to name the Best Picture nominees at this year's Oscars (which air tonight). Perplexity responded with a full list of the 10 nominees in a couple of seconds. Gemini wavered for several seconds, then produced this:
The official nominees for Best Picture at the 97th Academy Awards haven't been announced yet. However, awards season is underway and some films are generating buzz. Here are a few of the titles considered to be frontrunners:
The Holdovers
Oppenheimer
American Fiction
Maestro
The Zone of Interest
It's important to note that this is not an exhaustive list and surprises can always happen. You can find out the official nominees closer to the ceremony date, which usually takes place in February.
Gemini's guesses were all right, but it missed the other five nominees. Oscar nominations were announced in late January, so it would seem Gemini is not as up to date as Perplexity. It may be that you need the paid version to get the most recent results. That's true of Chat GPT. But I seem to be getting real-time results from the free version of Perplexity. Just one data point, but it confirms my general feeling that Perplexity is a better answer bot at the moment.
My concern is that when you have a 92% market share, as Google does in search, there's nowhere to go but down. I imagine in 10 years we'll look back at lists of links as the first, most primitive stage of search. Google certainly has the resources to keep up with, if not lead the second stage, fueled by generative AI, but the chances of its market share slipping a bit as alternatives proliferate seem pretty high to me.
