Robert McNees
If anyone is wondering how google is doing, it is giving incorrect answers to the query “How old is the Universe?”
Instead of serving up scientific consensus (just shy of 14 billion years) it is latching onto recent media coverage of a questionable study (tired light, time-dependent coupling constants) claiming a much larger figure.
Notably, it gives me the right answer from an incognito window. But elevating popularity metrics over scientific consensus is a real problem!
Robert McNees
One reason to worry about this is the possibility that google is using tracking info to decide what response it should serve.
That makes sense for some queries, but not for a scientific question with a consensus answer.
For example, if google decides based on browsing that someone is anti-vaccine, and the person asks how best to protect their kids from measles, how will it respond?
Will you get medical consensus, or a "study" that hasn't been around long enough for serious review?
Robert McNees
That isn't necessarily what's happening.
I have a google scholar profile, so it may think I want to see new research results.
Maybe it is just serving results based on location, or the fact that I recently clicked on a link to a story about this study. Lots on non-nefarious possibilities!
But something like this still gives me pause! For a scientific question, I don't like the idea of google giving me one answer when it thinks it can see who I am, and a different answer when it can’t.
Cabbidges
Hmm. The one time I tried chatgpt I had the distinct feeling it was trying to figure out who I was by the way the answers varied with my response. I found even that creepy.
SloanLA
@mcnees Given how few ever read beyond a Google answer or a headline, this kind of misinformation is incredibly dangerous.
RodneyPetersonTalent
@mcnees this is a problem? So you’re telling me the iPhone that was powered on at the birth of the universe doesn’t have an internal digital list that would include the date on which the first battery was inserted and it was powered on? This seems so simple. I swear I heard Ted Cruz make a reference to this a few days ago…
E. Drake Kajioka
@mcnees Huh. On both logged in and incognito it gives me the 13b answer. Interesting find...
Steffen Christensen
@mcnees Reassuringly, I get the correct answer on mobile now.
Quinn Comendant
@mcnees Google is giving me the “26.7 billion years old” answer. 🫤
John Mark Ockerbloom
@mcnees Interesting. It's still giving me the 13.8 billion year answer. (I'm not in an incognito tab, but I'm also not signed in to Google).
Rachel Greenham
@mcnees @lisamelton For comparison, DDG is giving me a "recent news" section at the top with 3 thumbnail-links to popular science articles about the new paper, but otherwise the main results list is all links to credible sites showing the [currently-accepted] correct answer in the quoted snippet. There is no simple answer given directly on the page.
that "recent news" section can also be turned off, though I haven’t.
Nihl L'Amas
@mcnees My favorite
Jack Yan (甄爵恩)
@mcnees I had been testing it with something far less significant relating to my industry, where weʼre the longest-running player. Google served up the name of a later entrant that makes this claim falsely, and did so for years, in its info box. We made complaints regularly, and occasionally it would remedy this (quoting Wikipedia), but soon return to citing the wrong info. Right now the info box is gone altogether, but the other site is placed ahead of ours.
@Mojeek gets it right.
Gatekeeper
@mcnees
Interesting chat for stoned people. We don't know , we will never know. It's a simple guess.
End of story. 14? 27? 50?
It doesn't even matter in the sceme of things. Next!
Michel Bozgounov 🇺🇦
@mcnees "That isn't necessarily what's happening. I have a google scholar profile, so it may think I want to see new research results."
I'm afraid that this is exactly what is happening. I am not logged in to Google in my mobile Firefox and this is the result I see... :-/
Gwyn
@mcnees I've been more and more aware lately of how useless Google is as a search engine, but it's so damn hard to change the habit of it being the default. 😛
Doesn't help that it's on all my smart speakers... Now I'm wondering how accurate Google Assistant's answers are. 🙁
Tetra
@mcnees Gotta love the "In light years" suggestion, too lmao
I fucking hate how these slip between actual Google functions like Images or News now, btw. I already despised how they made the order random, but now it's even more annoying to navigate.
It actually pushed me over the edge and I use DuckDuckGo now, I can't stand Google search anymore.
Robert McNees
@mmoore We didn’t, hopefully? But we don’t need google suggesting to folks that a speculative result is on equal footing with the consensus answer.
Matt Moore
@mcnees how did we go from “you can’t believe anything you see on the internet” to “trust the first result on google regardless of the source”
rodin
@mcnees perhaps we're just in the middle of the research transient. This is recent news and may not have propagated everywhere. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-age-universe-billion-years-previously.html
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