We went from precise web search with boolean operators to "natural language models" of AI search.

[avincentinspace@furry.engineer]

@Npars01 @krypt3ia @tinker mm, no, efficient search provides fewer opportunities to show the user ads

[w@11n.org]

we haven't invented a strong enough word to describe my feelings when a search engine searches for what it thinks I meant instead of doing what I told it to do

[glc@mastodon.online]

@AVincentInSpace @Npars01 @krypt3ia @tinker

To expand on that: as documented by internal Google emails, in a iively discussion prior to rolling back efficient search.

[tessarakt@mastodon.social]

@tinker so in less than one generation, IT itself will be gone ...

[ferricoxide@blahaj.zone]

@tinker@infosec.exchange

Other than above-average intelligence, I don't consider myself "neurodivergent" (and I definitely haven't been diagnosed ASD or any of the ADHD derivatives. That said, I learned to program at an early age — and many decades ago — which created an operator-oriented mind-set. What I liked about the search of a decade ago was that it functioned analogously to searches in other contexts (LDAP, SQL, JMSE, etc.).

Now? Search is all "squishy". And the only thing that acts as a counter to that "squishiness" is that inputs are stateful: i can iteratively-refine a search to get the results I need.

If you're planning to use advertising to offset the cost of offering an AI-based search, that (all but) forced iterated-request pattern gives you many more opportunities to inject advertising. As a service-operator, you just have to hope that your per-query advertising-revenue is greater than the token-cost of a given iteration.

[nicelymanifest@mastodon.social]

@tinker My favourite notion now is to reject the negative infused neurodivergent and neurotypical labels. I propose :

neurodiverse or neurocreative

and

neurosimple or neuroinert

Anything seen as in the minority is so often couched in negative terms. Often as it is a threat to the rest.

I often find 'normal' people severely lacking in curiosity and creativity and passion.

[mariyadelano@hachyderm.io]

@tinker I miss Boolean web search so much…

[luatic@mastodon.social]

@tinker Are you sure that this is an accurate account of history? I think a big reason we didn't see widespread "fuzzy" search earlier is because we just didn't know how to make it work well. Simple keyword search is much easier to implement, especially at scale. And even then you had and still have many aspects that are still far from precise and very much heuristic, like the ranking of search results. Of course a few idealized problems admit "precise" algorithms (like PageRank) but that's it?

[ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai]

@tinker

If you wanted to have an idea of just how absurd vibecoding is @jonny ’s epic thread, where he reviewed Claude source is more than enough.

I encourage you, however, to reconsider your presumption that neurotypical people automatically love that bullshit. It is very typical to assume anecdotal experience as globally relevant.

Nine year-old children now say “it’s AI” to characterize something as a lie. Children have no history where search was reliable.

[ariarhythmic@ohai.social]

@tinker Is it really gone

I don't think there's a law forcing everyone to use AI to pentest

[engel@chaos.social]

@tinker am i the only one who is disturbed by the combination of a really good point and heroification of neuro spicy folk?

Neurospicy’s are superior human beings! (Satire)

[sstrader@masto.ai]

@tinker "nuerodivergent [chose] boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT, etc)'

No. We simply had engineers and developers who cared about what engineers and developers care about: logic, accuracy, consistency. They were replaced with people who cosplay at engineering. Skill was replaced with the affectation of skill.

[mavu@mastodon.social]

@tinker i started to ask the search engine the way the most stupid person i can imagine would ask.
That helps sometimes and always fills me with a deep semse of loss and sadness.