Comment by baxtr
1 year ago
I urge anyone to do the following: take a subject you know really really well and then feed it into one of the deep research tools and check the results.
You might be amazed but most probably very shocked.
1 year ago
I urge anyone to do the following: take a subject you know really really well and then feed it into one of the deep research tools and check the results.
You might be amazed but most probably very shocked.
In my experience, Perplexity and OpenAI's deep research tools are so misleading that they are almost worthless in any area worth researching. This becomes evident if one searches for something they know or tries to verify the facts the models produce. In my area of expertise, video game software engineering, about 80% of the insights are factually wrong cocktail-party-level thoughts.
The "deep research" features were much more effective at getting me to pay for both subscriptions than in any valuable data collection. The former, I suspect, was the goal anyway.
It is very concerning that people will use these tools. They will be harmed as a result.
> “They will be harmed as a result.”
Compared to what exactly? The ad-fueled, SEO-optimized nightmare that is modern web search? Or perhaps the rampant propaganda and blatant falsehoods on social media?
Whoever is blindly trusting what ChatGPT is spitting out is also falling for whatever garbage they’re finding online. ChatGPT is not very smart, but at least it isn’t intentionally deceptive.
I think it’s an incredible improvement for the low information user over any current alternatives.
It’s deceptive by design because there is no reasoning, and humans created it and know this.
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OpenAI knows the tool it markets as “research” does not pass muster. It hallucinates, mid-quotes sources, and does not follow the formal inference logic used in research.
AI slop already produces many plausible-sounding articles used as infotainment and in academia. We already know this slop adds much noise to the signal and that poor signal slows actual research in both cases. But until now, the slop wasn't masquerading specifically as research! It was presented as an assistant, which provides no accuracy guarantees. “Research” by the word’s common meanings does.
This is why it will do harm. There is no doubt in my mind. And I believe OpenAI knows it. They have quite smart engineers, certainly clever enough to figure it out.
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Yup none of these tools are actually any close to AGI or "research". They are still a much better search engine and of course spam generator.
I tried to get it to research the design of models for account potential in B2B sales. It went to the shittiest blogspam sites and returned something utterly unimpressive. Instacancelled the $200 sub. Will try it a few more times this month but my expectations are very low.
In my case very "not useful". Background, I am writing a Substack where I write "deep research" articles on autonomous agent tech and explored several of these tools to understand the risks to my workflow, but none of them can replace my as of now.
Murrai Gell-Mann amnesia