ChatGPT: The First True Threat to Google Search?

Dave Winer:

I went to ChatGPT and entered “Simple instructions about how to send email from a Node.js app?” What came back was absolutely perfect, none of the confusing crap and business models you see in online instructions in Google. I see why Google is worried. ;-)

No need for a winky there. The threat to Google is real. That type of search for a clearly-written one-line programming question used to produce excellent results from Google Search. For a number of years, though, search results for queries like that — both at Google and competing search engines — have been littered with junk generated by content farms. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack sometimes, combing through the query results for a proper solution.

Stack Overflow, of course, is very successful, and the whole point of it is providing a place to find good answers to programming questions. The problem with Google Search today isn’t specific to programming questions, but the general problem of answering how-to questions in any subject.

And look who’s coming — the most ruthlessly competitive company in computing history.

★ Tuesday, 24 January 2023