[alain94040]

True, and Google is slowly being disrupted by the next generation of Internet search (looks like disruption happens every 20 years or so).

The age where "search" is meant to return pages will eventually end. I know it's early, but you can think of GPT-3 as the next generation of search engines. You consume the entire "Internet knowledge", and you answer questions, by merging information from multiple sources. Not just returning one existing page. That's sort of what GPT-3 does, you just don't think of it as a search engine yet.

Google felt "magic" in 2000. A search-oriented GPT-3 will feel "magic" soon.

[Keyframe]

GPT-3 will be remembered and used by no one in no time. Google is already answering questions to queries and also offering alternative queries. It's now in a hybrid state where it tries to answer your stuff but also provide links. Quite interesting and quite usable already. GPT-3 is a cute experiment, nothing more.

[Nullabillity]

GPT-3 can't do source criticism, and hiding the source means that the user can't do it either.

[rhizome]

The lists of questions that Google returns as snippets can be seen as possible elements of a paragraph for a process that doesn't quite know what a paragraph is. Clicking on them acts as a survey response, a signal for that element of information's significance in the topic for which you searched.

[rvba]

> Google is slowly being disrupted by the next generation of Internet search

What is the name of the search service (or services?) that are better than Google? You make such big statements and provide zero examples.

Bing is inferior to Google; duckduckgo is even worse - the search is often unreliable (even after years of work); Tineye got hindered by GDPR and it was search via picture anyway. So what else have we got there?

I remember the time when Google came out very well. It was a strictly better product than Altavista. Once you started using Google you would never go back to Altavista - the difference was like night and day. Altavista was dead for you. There were no obstacles to switch either. I assume that if a new product came today, that was better, even say 25% better, people would start switching via word of mouth.

Back in the day Altavista lost because their technology was inferior. It wasnt about website design (although Google's clean landing page helped), it was 100% technology: Google was strictly better. In fact at that time there were other search service too - they were even worse - and often provided nearly random results (e.g. search for William Shakespeare -> get random porn website...).

PageRank algorithm sounds easy once you know it, but it is easy once someone tells you about it. It is much more difficult to invent. Back in the day many other people worked on improving search (those were the times of catalogs and webrings) and Google were the first (?) to come up with something like that. PageRank was basically bleeding edge research sponsored by spy agencies. It only sounds easy with the benefit of hindsight.

Also not directly to you, but the opening poster basically writes that:

* they could make Altavista work - but the meddling management hidnered it (how? did they have their own PageRank equivalent? I doubt it)

* they could have made blockchain work - but the meddling management hidnered it

I see a certain Scooby doo pattern. And a senior developer/manager/architect (with 20++ years of experience under their belt) who claims that they could make blockchain work, while most people with such experience know that blockchain is an empty buzzword.

[beojan]

That is the type of thing Google (and Wolfram Alpha) tries to do now.

[gman83]

Isn't GPT-3 licensed exclusively to Microsoft? Maybe Bing will actually get good.

[hooande]

all of search isn't question/fact based. I'd love to see the real numbers, but I'd think that less than a third of all searches are suited for a factual question answer system.

Google search is still largely based on human feedback. what people link to, what terms they choose to use in relation to other terms. It will be difficult to disrupt that

[homarp]

does the Ad business model work with GPT-3 answer ? Isn't the point of google to make it 'confusing' enough to the point that I will click on the ad because it's clearer ?

How GPT-3 search-oriented answer would help with that ?