Prelude: This blogpost began as a vessel to capture a quirky AI-hallucination happenstance in an Irish bar soccer world cup watch-party and quickly turned into a requiem to the non-LLM pilled plain-vanilla Google search. Well that, and an incidental ode to one of my mentors in the machine learning world who was the earliest of mainstream CS academia to associate the qualia of intelligence to the Google search engine.
Proto-techs get oft replaced but rarely majorized
If each version of an incumbent bellwether technology is measured by a score vector, we rarely find the case that the disruptor-tech that usurps the incumbent will have its score vector majorizing (all-mogging in current lingo) the incumbent's. The recent LLM-pilling of Google search has brought with it the bleeding of prompt brittleness of an LLM into search query brittleness that was hitherto not a concerning flaw of the plain-vanilla pre-LLM-pilled Google search. The rest of this blog explores this phenomenology through the lens of the unlikely triad of Sam Roweis, Mbappe and an Irish bar world cup watch party coming together.
As an undergrad, his paper on "Neighbourhood Components Analysis" was one of the first ML papers I had fully grokked thanks mainly to his patient and perhaps, unexpected replies to every single one of my infantile questions over email. In those days, as a scrappy undergrad from one of the unheralded schools, I rarely received replies to my emails and his replies were an absolute treasure trove for me (the other exception was incidentally Prof. Gilbert Strang).
It remains one of my biggest blunders that I ignored all attempts by yahoo to resuscitate my old yahoo mail account that had those precious emails but the official NYU obituary blog absolutely nailed it when they said:
"Sam had a singular gift: to him, any complex concept was naturally reduced to a simple set of ideas, each of which had clear analogies in other (often very distant) realms. This gift allowed him to explain the key idea behind anything in just a few minutes. Combined with contagious enthusiasm, this made him an unusually gifted teacher and speaker. His talks and discussions were clear and highly entertaining."
So, yeah. Before the onset of LLMs there was a "Good Sam" in the community who everyone loved and as the pic below shows, collaborated with every single AI stalwarts of today including the so-termed Godfathers of AI: Yoshua Bengio, Yann LeCun, Geoffrey Hinton et al.
Pax Googlana: Google search engine as an intelligent tech
He was also well known to have held what then was considered an edgy opinion in academic circles that this absolute engineering marvel called the Google search engine was one of the closest things humanity had built that could qualify as an intelligent computer. (His obituary does jibghlight that belief as well)
Just before the rise of LLMs, through the 2010s, he lived through a Pax Googlana sweet-spot era where we all felt that Google search was actually getting really good.
Like really really good.
Like, you can perform exact searches with just quotations marks level good!
There were whispers that no one human being at Google had a grokking-level understanding of how this engineering behemoth actually worked!
There was also this metaphysical lore that there was a secretive *extremely well compensated* core search group set (cardinality of around 35) at Google that had a quasi-US Secret Service Protective detail level protection given their civilizational relevance.
Heck, there was an even an entire cottage industry of STS research studying the "Just Google It" phenomenology from every angle possible.
To many of us, it was the pinnacle of ML engineering and a glimpse into the scary level of compounding effect that having a sole front-row seat to civilizational impulses of humankind could bring about.
In my humble viewpoint, the rise and rise of the Google search engine is arguably the most singularly influential techno-cultural touchpoints of the modern post-internet age.
LLMification, Mbappe and the fall from grace
These days, Google search has had a shocking fall from grace. Gone are the heydays of exact phrase search and reliably boring top web links.
Uff Marone, you can't even use it to perform a simple timezone conversion reliably without bumping into some AI-sloplucination for crying out loud!
Pro-tip: Do not use the current Google search for time-zone conversions
This weekend, as I sat down to watch the France vs England world-cup bronze medal game amidst a sea of very drunk Les Blues fans and watched England race to a 4 zip lead, I witnessed one of the most thrilling Mbappe-inspired comebacks with a divine brace of goals. Incidentally, the gentlemen next to me being soccer fanatics began to loudly argue that Mbappe via his second goal had not equaled but broken Messi's record. The more drunk of the two gentlemen refused to buy the commentators' celebrations on screen and proceeded to challenge the lesser drunk one betting that he knew that Mbappe was trailing Messi by two goals before the game and not one! Yeah. tends to have that effect on us. Even the best of us.
Just when I thought he would stupidly lose the bet, I heard a loud "TOLD YA!! TAKE THAT! NOW BUY ME MY GUINNESS!!"
The more drunk gentleman had in his drunken stupor typed in a query on google, elatedly seen the results and shoved the screen in his mate's face.
The rest of the crowd around me thankfully came to his friend's defense and it was quickly settled that Google search had hallucinated.
Shocked by what I had witnessed, I tried out 4 slightly different versions of the query and was shocked! The poor (more) drunk gentleman was indeed justified in his ephemeral elation. Google search indeed yielded wildly different answers to slightly perturbed versions of essentially the same query (see screenshot as proof)
Prompt fragility bleads into search fragility
The not-very-gut-friendly mix of Irish curry chicken, Guinness and Onion rings I had downed bizarrely triggered memories of Sam Roweiss wondering what he would make of the demise of this engineering marvel we had in our midst that we do so sorely miss.
To clarify, this is not some luddite-themed "Waah! LLM bad! Waah!" post. This is just a requiem for a beautiful tech that existed but now doesn't.
RIP Sam. Thank you for your kindness and guidance!
RIP Google search. Thank you for the 2010s! It was good while it lasted.
Introduction
Prelude: This blogpost began as a vessel to capture a quirky AI-hallucination happenstance in an Irish bar soccer world cup watch-party and quickly turned into a requiem to the non-LLM pilled plain-vanilla Google search. Well that, and an incidental ode to one of my mentors in the machine learning world who was the earliest of mainstream CS academia to associate the qualia of intelligence to the Google search engine.
Proto-techs get oft replaced but rarely majorized
If each version of an incumbent bellwether technology is measured by a score vector, we rarely find the case that the disruptor-tech that usurps the incumbent will have its score vector majorizing (all-mogging in current lingo) the incumbent's.
The recent LLM-pilling of Google search has brought with it the bleeding of prompt brittleness of an LLM into search query brittleness that was hitherto not a concerning flaw of the plain-vanilla pre-LLM-pilled Google search. The rest of this blog explores this phenomenology through the lens of the unlikely triad of Sam Roweis, Mbappe and an Irish bar world cup watch party coming together.
Remembering Sam Roweis
During my PhD, I became a borderline stan of an extremely affable rising star of the machine learning world: Sam Roweis (April 27, 1972 - January 12, 2010).
As an undergrad, his paper on "Neighbourhood Components Analysis" was one of the first ML papers I had fully grokked thanks mainly to his patient and perhaps, unexpected replies to every single one of my infantile questions over email. In those days, as a scrappy undergrad from one of the unheralded schools, I rarely received replies to my emails and his replies were an absolute treasure trove for me (the other exception was incidentally Prof. Gilbert Strang).
It remains one of my biggest blunders that I ignored all attempts by yahoo to resuscitate my old yahoo mail account that had those precious emails but the official NYU obituary blog absolutely nailed it when they said:
So, yeah. Before the onset of LLMs there was a "Good Sam" in the community who everyone loved and as the pic below shows, collaborated with every single AI stalwarts of today including the so-termed Godfathers of AI: Yoshua Bengio, Yann LeCun, Geoffrey Hinton et al.
Sourced from: https://cs.nyu.edu/home/people/in_memoriam/samroweis.html
Pax Googlana: Google search engine as an intelligent tech
He was also well known to have held what then was considered an edgy opinion in academic circles that this absolute engineering marvel called the Google search engine was one of the closest things humanity had built that could qualify as an intelligent computer. (His obituary does jibghlight that belief as well)
Just before the rise of LLMs, through the 2010s, he lived through a Pax Googlana sweet-spot era where we all felt that Google search was actually getting really good.
Like really really good.
Like, you can perform exact searches with just quotations marks level good!
There were whispers that no one human being at Google had a grokking-level understanding of how this engineering behemoth actually worked!
There was also this metaphysical lore that there was a secretive *extremely well compensated* core search group set (cardinality of around 35) at Google that had a quasi-US Secret Service Protective detail level protection given their civilizational relevance.
Heck, there was an even an entire cottage industry of STS research studying the "Just Google It" phenomenology from every angle possible.
To many of us, it was the pinnacle of ML engineering and a glimpse into the scary level of compounding effect that having a sole front-row seat to civilizational impulses of humankind could bring about.
In my humble viewpoint, the rise and rise of the Google search engine is arguably the most singularly influential techno-cultural touchpoints of the modern post-internet age.
LLMification, Mbappe and the fall from grace
These days, Google search has had a shocking fall from grace. Gone are the heydays of exact phrase search and reliably boring top web links.
Uff Marone, you can't even use it to perform a simple timezone conversion reliably without bumping into some AI-sloplucination for crying out loud!
Pro-tip: Do not use the current Google search for time-zone conversions
This weekend, as I sat down to watch the France vs England world-cup bronze medal game amidst a sea of very drunk Les Blues fans and watched England race to a 4 zip lead, I witnessed one of the most thrilling Mbappe-inspired comebacks with a divine brace of goals. Incidentally, the gentlemen next to me being soccer fanatics began to loudly argue that Mbappe via his second goal had not equaled but broken Messi's record. The more drunk of the two gentlemen refused to buy the commentators' celebrations on screen and proceeded to challenge the lesser drunk one betting that he knew that Mbappe was trailing Messi by two goals before the game and not one! Yeah.
Just when I thought he would stupidly lose the bet, I heard a loud "TOLD YA!! TAKE THAT! NOW BUY ME MY GUINNESS!!"
The more drunk gentleman had in his drunken stupor typed in a query on google, elatedly seen the results and shoved the screen in his mate's face.
The rest of the crowd around me thankfully came to his friend's defense and it was quickly settled that Google search had hallucinated.
Shocked by what I had witnessed, I tried out 4 slightly different versions of the query and was shocked! The poor (more) drunk gentleman was indeed justified in his ephemeral elation. Google search indeed yielded wildly different answers to slightly perturbed versions of essentially the same query (see screenshot as proof)
Prompt fragility bleads into search fragility
The not-very-gut-friendly mix of Irish curry chicken, Guinness and Onion rings I had downed bizarrely triggered memories of Sam Roweiss wondering what he would make of the demise of this engineering marvel we had in our midst that we do so sorely miss.
To clarify, this is not some luddite-themed "Waah! LLM bad! Waah!" post. This is just a requiem for a beautiful tech that existed but now doesn't.
RIP Sam. Thank you for your kindness and guidance!
RIP Google search. Thank you for the 2010s! It was good while it lasted.