Google's regression toward mediocrity

I have found that the user experience with Google has deteriorated over the past two years. In the past couple of months, it has worsened considerably.

First, Google started introducing more and more aggressive spell-checking and correction in the queries. Often, especially with obscure languages like Finnish, Google decides to correct the query, even if the correct spelling would yield numerous results. I remember either Brin or Page (or maybe it was Marissa?) saying that the ideal use case of Google would be that it only returned one result - the one that answers the user's query exactly. What happened to that notion? The "Did you mean"-function has been very useful and moreso with the advent of two panes of results, one for corrected spellings and one for sic - as it was spelled. Forcing repeated corrections, especially when it broadens the results set, can lead to regression towards the mean. With search results, can lead to mediocrity.

The more worrying new feature has in fact lead to a completely new use behaviour on Google. In the past, one could be fairly confident that the best possible results served to meet the query would be the top results, and rarely had to scroll to the bottom of the page. The new feature of omitting words from the query leads to the user having to scroll to the bottom of the page to make sure no words have been omitted. If there have been, they will discover a line of text: "Tip: These results do not include the word..." There the user is offered a link which leads to the query the user originally wanted to make. Here is an example, where the word "among" has been omitted by Google: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=aggression+among+diabetics (odd example, but relevant to research I was conducting recently).

This is incredibly contrived behaviour and arrogate development from Google. I completely understand that the feature has been extensively tested and proven to improve various problematic use cases, but it has also lead to an unforeseen difficulty in using Google. The strength of the search engine that I remember got me using it, was that it included all the typed words in the query, without having to resort to operators like '+' to force a word to appear. In fact, Google even told you that the '+' operator was unnecessary, since all the words were included by default.

There is very little difference in terms of actual experienced quality between the results of major search engines. Studies are divided as to whether there is perceived difference in quality (i.e. where the user knows the results have been generated by Yahoo! or Google), (Bailey, Thomas 2008).

I think Google has more to lose, and while it will be marginal, there are early abandoners as well as early adopters, and the margins will go first. Sheryl Sandberg had us read the Tipping Point as the first Google Book Club (yeah, we had one) book, and the simplistic learnings from there would be good to bear in mind when considering the importance of marginal users' marginal search results.

EDIT: just got a really good example where Google corrects my query making it useless:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=atlas.ti+variable+playback+speed&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Sights> Log> Sold down on the Mekong

The Trip: Vietnam #2

This comes from Phnom Phen, but here's more photos from the way up here on the Mekong river. We stayed in a little border town for one night on the way, so it took a total of two days on a wooden slow boat.

What made me blog now is intellectual capital and the little value it seems to have in these countries. Sure, if you're getting by with $40 a month, selling counterfeit t-shirts with a multi-billion corporation brand on them doesn't feel like you're doing too much harm. But, as hard as it is, it's the principle that counts.

I'm working on launching a couple of, if not brands, at least branded commercial identities, so I've thought about this quite a bit lately. Arriving in Bangkok at first I was awed by the amount and quality of counterfeit goods sold practically everywhere. The actual department stores sell inferior brands since Polo, Nike, Burberry, D&G, et al. are covered by the stalls in the night market. I thought hell, why not stock up and send some home to the bro and sis while I'm at it - maybe one of those superficially faithful Patek Philippe copies wouldn't look too bad on me. But I didn't, and I won't. I'll wait until I can afford the real thing, thanks very much - if I really feel I need it then.

What really made up my mind were the "publishing houses" in Vietnam and here in Cambodia. There's a row of copiers on one side, and bookshelves on the other side. None of the books are originals. In fact, a fellow traveller told me she tried to buy a book that had just come out, and they'd told her "no no, not for sale, for copy". I would've possible hit that person on the mouth at that point. Seeing this in action finally underlined the bad vibe I've had about downloading music for free (though, yes, I've discovered tons of music I've paid for eventually). I have such immense respect for writers that I could only see this as a great wrongdoing. If I'll ever write my book, get it published and find it in a Cambodia publishing house, I'll burn the damn establishment down.


 

Thoughts> Nonzero - cooperative evolution

An essay on assigning meaning to the evolution of consciousness (don't worry, more holiday photos coming up in the next post soon).

Abstract: The only quality separating humans from animals is our ability to craft elaborate excuses for our instincts.

On the train from Tokyo to Kyoto, I finished reading Richard Wright's Nonzero (thanks for the recommendation, Jon). It took me a while to get through it, and despite the author's ultimate conclusions, it's a very good pop-science book on the evolution of culture, cooperation in culture and genetics and the (potential) directionality of evolution. Here's what I thought, written on the Shinkansen train.

During the book, Wright carefully tiptoes the line between the Intelligent Design camp and the hard-core-scientific evolutionary camp. In the end, he states that evolution exhibits evidence of teleology - being designed for a purpose, or more robustly, exhibiting persistent, flexible directionality via information processing. But from the evidence he presents, and the little this armchair anthropologist has gathered this far, I claim that Wright misreads the evidence and that there is no mystery of consciousness.

Consciousness is the most important stepping stone in making any claims for or against a teleological design, but for Wright this is a tripping stone. He juxtaposes consciousness - subjective experience of the world and of existing in the world - with evolutionary needs on the basis that subjective experience, interpreted through modern science and behavioural theory is superfluous, an epiphenomenon: unnecessary.

Granted, the existence of consciousness is a tough nut. Intelligence, in general, is a positive thing for evolution of a species - fast, more complex information processing and communication of this information has been the ticket of our species, and is employed by many other successful species as well. Depending on definitions, you can claim that these properties correlate positively with the success of a species.

But what about consciousness? In setting the stage for claiming that consciousness can be ascribed as having almost mystical properties, Wright argues that it isn't necessary - we don't need to be self-aware, to be able to assign qualities to our own existence in order to evolve successfully. As long as we care for our offspring as efficiently as we can, we don't have to feel love for our offspring. Evolution doesn't call for it. In essence, he bases the appreciation of consciousness on the question "Why is it like something to be alive?", the sub-question "What is being alive like?" being answerable with adjectives and adverbs. Or as a little thought experiment, contrast "Why do we feel love?" with "Why are we able to doubt the love we feel?"

But in my subjective experience: subjective experience - self-awareness and the subscription to definitions of being alive - is perfectly in line with evolution. From reacting to a simple set of stimuli (threat, hunger, cold), we've over time grown to having to react to an increasingly complex set of stimuli, and the organism has started to prioritize both between stimuli and between reactions to different stimuli.

From the gene's perspective, sorting out the best prioritizations (not just the best reactions) has grown more complex as well. So we start to create mental taxanomies of our reactions. This is still far from subjective experience, and is merely algorithmic. But we are a social species, and the evolution of the species goes hand in hand with the evolution of society (it's just that societal evolution of a species doesn't really mushroom until communication skills evolve). As complexity grows (and our processing of sensory information feeds into this growth), we start to react to expectations of our reactions to stimuli. This means we need to plan our place into the future, and we prioritize this placement of ourselves. Feelings, urges, are the most efficient way of processing this. Fear and greed, the muscles in the arm moving the Invisible Hand, allow us to 'feel' our anticipated place after a series of reactions to an array of stimuli and in order for this to happen, we need to be aware of ourselves in relation to others. Self-awareness wouldn't evolve in a species that favors solitary existence.

Intelligence, consciousness and self-awareness are over-simplifications, they are just shorthand. They are not emergent properties of a supercharged brain, a brain that during it's evolution passes a point where it 'tips' into intelligence and self-awareness. It's not black and white. There are various stages in evolution of subjective experience as there are of consciousness - and not even stages, but a constant slope, or curve, or flatline - and we, as a species, are at a point where prioritization of our behaviour includes the prioritization of our own experience of the world. Subjective experience has a function and is thus a natural product of evolution. There is nothing mystical or metaphysical to it.

Just because we can play with the abstract concept of intelligence doesn't mean we're intelligent. And just because we are aware of our selves, of our experience in existence, doesn't mean we've somehow 'arrived' at a some peak of awareness, or even a waypoint, of evolution (Wright doesn't imply this either). A species, quite likely ours, will develop into being more intelligent and more self-aware: after all, our species, being highly social and having some genetics wired for social interaction and cooperation has jump-started collective self-awareness by being able to engage in (very) abstract communication (such as this essay).

Log> Thoughts> Dunes of Durban

In today's entry, good thoughts and bad thoughts, time dedicated for more of s.c. chilling out, more good books, more time to think and talk and look and learn.

As far as backpacker's hostels go, I'm staying in a palace. To me, the name Happy Hippo doesn't convey at all the loft-like converted warehouse with massive communal spaces, excellent rooms, brand new kitchen and a roof terrace with a bar. It's on the docks right next to surfing and the city centre. If coming to Durban, stay here, even if you're normally looking for a higher grade of accommodation. I'm here two nights and spent two nights before this at a more traditional, rustic and messy hostel a bit farther from the city, so I can compare. I just love these loft-style spaces.

But what comes to the city, I have not wished to photograph Durban. Something puts me off it. It's a strange city: potentially very appealing with the long stretch of a beach washed with the perennially warm currents of the Indian Ocean. Most of it is clean, orderly and developed, yet it gives off an impression of everything having been abandoned just a few months ago. It's as if a slow decay had just started, colours fading, paint flaking, an abandoned blanket flapping in a street corner. The central parts are bustling with people, but just a few blocks out an eerie stillness pervades.

Maybe I'm looking at the city, and the country, with too much of a Western (or Nothern) eye. Though the framework looks Western, it holds a highly unemployed population with multiple issues of development, health and adaptation. Crime is ridiculously high - it must be, with every single local that I've exhanged more than four sentences with warning me about it. I've dutifully avoided the idle groups of young men, the number one source of trouble in the world.

In spite of a fever that's been creeping along, I went out with a surfboard today and almost drowned myself with it (or below it, rather). For the fever, I got a malaria self-test kit that I haven't used yet, but will go and prick the skin right after this post. The buggers did bite me in Madagascar and Mauritius quite liberally, despite the toxins.

Right now I'm reading Lord of the Flies (last read in 1994), and listening to Kalas.

Thoughts> Secular win for human rights

Yesterday in the UK we had a piece of the most important and positive news in a long time. The government completely overrode any exemptions for religious institutions from the gay adoption law. Whereas gay rights in general are an important human rights issue, this decision reflects something more important - a perfectly secular, political decision behind a public service.

The Church reacted defensively yet honestly. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, head of Catholics in England and Wales, said:

We are, of course, deeply disappointed that no exemption will be granted to our agencies on the grounds of widely held religious conviction and conscience.

And this really boils it down. We are refusing to make exemptions based on beliefs. This sets an excellent precedent for many questions around religious behaviour and displays in the public space, especially publicly funded institutions (recently in the UK, schools and public transport have been sources of rows over religious insignia). The precedent is important because this is a country with a state church, and because recently especially the Conservatives have raised the failure of multiculturalism as the main reason behind alienation and radicalization of minorities - especially muslim communities.

In yesterday's Breakfast show on BBC, David Cameron stated that in the UK, we should stop treating people as members of a certain group, and instead start treating them as individuals. It would be impossible for a part of the country to be under Sharia law and part under English law - we have one law, "and we all must obey", Cameron finished.

That's all very well, as long as that one law is a secular, impartial set of rules, and slowly but surely, that's how it's being interpreted. In my view, disregard and even moderate civilized intolerance for religion - any and all religion equally - is welcome. Intolerance based on race, nationality, gender, or sexual preference is unacceptable and barbaric. The difference here is, of course, that the former is an imaginary grounds for discrimination, whereas the latter ones are real (though still of course unacceptable) grounds for discrimination.