If nobody writes it, the LLM can't learn it. This is going to be a fascinating shift of resources. I suspect it will have the inverse effect of eroding traditional journalism outlets to retrofit for the new model, while boosting smaller competitors, but with everyone going to subscription based. The content creators could make a significant amount of money.
Then again, this would be a great time for state-sponsored media, if we didn't have such an anti-intellectual assclown as president and the lacky congress/scotus.
I'm naturally conspiratorial; but, this is possibly why search results were intentionally degraded over the past 5 years. Which has had an impact on overall site traffic that has not gone unnoticed. Google's been trying their luck with "creator summits" over the past few years but the creators are starting to smell a rat.
So you have Google which famously does not want people to actually leave their property. Infoboxes, calculator, extraction of semantic data for direct display in search results.
Would a company like that intentionally downgrade search results making quality content harder for users to find, then train their LLMs on this highly valuable content, ultimately creating an unnatural shift away from the previous model to the "weak AI chatbot" model?
I know HN hates conspiracies but there's trillions of dollars at stake here. We know companies will poison entire communities and create flammable rivers just to shave a few million off the expenses. Who knows what Google will do to keep it's market position?
Real web search is disappearing locked behind large datasets unavailable for normal users. The AI screen ensures you’re fed exactly what they intended while siloing off the web more and more to block competition. All the while signing exclusivity deals which should realistically be illegal (try finding current Reddit results anywhere but Google).
AI based interaction makes it much easier to manipulate users into buying your items as they add a layer of human-like trust on top of the machine. It won’t be long before prices are hidden behind LLMs generating prices based on who you are. I’m already noticing ChatGPT becoming more and more enthusiastic about any product it thinks I have the potential of buying. Try asking it if something is a good deal, 9 times out of 10 it will say, “Yes, go for it.”
We don’t want to live in a proprietary world where LLMs exist. This technology needs to be open. The search data needs to be open and not walled off to only monopolies. This is an inflection point.
You can probably review the wetted materials but fluoropolymers are more expensive and not required in consumer water filters so I would assume not much PFAS. If its some activated carbon and IEX resins then its likely not making things worse.
Not the person you asked, but the chlorine level is very high in my muni water so I like running it through a Britta charcoal filter. If I'm in a rush, tap is fine.
I'm in my 50's and consult consumer reports whenever I need to buy a white-box appliance. I've moved a few times so I find myself having to do this more than most people.
The qualm I have with CR goes back to the 1980's when I was a bike mechanic for many years. I had a broad knowledge of all the current brands, and knew which bikes were cheap junk. CR had incorrectly ranked the quality of the bicycles largely due to how they "felt" while riding them. One bike, which was actually good quality, got dinged because it wasn't adjusted properly ("Shifter did not engage lowest gears." or something like that). That one article tainted my opinion of them for anything that requires "tuning" by an expert.
Thank you that is very informative in the context as I'm rather new to Consumer Reports. There definitely articles strange rankings. For example I was looking for an reverse osmosis filter and this is something consumer reports just doesn't really have ranked (at least no searchable from their website). They have 1-2 models and they're both not brands that match "reddit reverse osmosis filter" when I do a web search.
I do enjoy their studies on things like: the percentage of plastic particles in General Mills products.
I was a big believer in Consumer Reports until I started following their advice. Beginning in 2000s, CR has been repeatedly wrong about which brand of TV is reliable, which dishwasher, which car. I spent a decade following their advice and having nothing but trouble.
Maybe CR gives something a good review and demand goes up and quality suffers a as a result; but they seem useless and as good as a shot in the dark.
> One bike, which was actually good quality, got dinged because it wasn't adjusted properly
What's your estimate for the percentage of owners that are going to get it adjusted properly?
Most of the things I buy are not going to get tuned, and while a tuned score would be good to see an untuned score is important, likely more important.
Then again, this would be a great time for state-sponsored media, if we didn't have such an anti-intellectual assclown as president and the lacky congress/scotus.