A story about expectations from Google vs expectations from ChatGPT.
We all know that ChatGPT creates patterns of plausible text that can sometimes be complete nonsense.
But we tend to expect Google to be accurate. The top hit or two have typically been very high quality. These days the top results are attempts to answer the question rather than links to relevant pages. An unfortunate side-effect is that this means Google can suffer from the same sorts of accuracy errors that ChatGPT is famous for.
Conclusion – I need to train my kids not to take for granted what Google tells them.
Here’s a simple example. I was curious whether I should be encouraging my kids to get a LinkedIn account and have a presence somewhere where old Gen X’ers are likely to look. So I asked Google. Guess what? The answer was out of date.
The first link says “13” and links to 8 Things Teenagers (and Their Parents) Need to Know about LinkedIn.
The second link points to LinkedIn’s User Agreement. Pretty clear from the LinkedIn Ts & Cs that the answer is 16.
For those who are curious, the “Minimum Age” hyperlink links to the following text: Members who were below this new Minimum Age when they started using the Services under a previous User Agreement which had allowed certain persons under 16 to use the Services, may continue to use the Services. As of June 2017 persons under the age of 16 are not eligible to use our Services.
Be good, work hard, get lucky 