Will AI Re-Invent Research Soon?
We live in a fast-paced world where everything seems to be at our fingertips – we can search out any answer, buy any product, or solve nearly any problem with just the phone in our hands. We “Google” and we ask Siri anything that pops into our heads. As AI continues to emerge into our daily lives, it could overtake our usual search engines such as Google, and maybe even re-invent research.
I’ve spent years refining my research techniques and abilities, and consider myself something of an expert in figuring out just which published sources and data are reliable, which are questionable, and which are nothing more than a pile of dung. Finding the right answer can be time consuming, but I’m confident in my ability to do just that. But could AI do it better?
Testing Out AI
Of late, I’ve continued to test out different AI platforms such as Chat GPT and Microsoft’s Copilot, with mixed results. While I still can’t seem to get AI to write a decent blog post for me, I’ve found a little success with it for research. On a few occasions recently, I was in need of data which is in the public realm, yet I was unable to locate it (I’m looking at YOU foreign government agencies!) through traditional search methods. So, I gave AI a try and typed in my data request. In my first try, I was instantly brought to the page on the government website with the data I was searching for, yet hadn’t been able to find after half an hour of digging and searching. Second try, similar request – I received a list of websites and sources that hadn’t popped up in my Google searches, all of which looked promising. Alas, none were. Some of the links were old and broken, others irrelevant, or simply didn’t have what I was looking for. The results of this second try were certainly inferior to my Google search results and my own sleuthing. Third, fourth, and fifth tries were all a bust as well. I noticed that the same wrong answers and irrelevant websites kept coming up in the AI searches no matter how I changed my prompt. It was as though the AI was learning the wrong way to do it, and couldn’t learn from its mistakes. This is worrisome.
As I’ve noted in previous posts, I’ve found AI content to range from spot-on (if it’s a current issue that lots of educated and knowledgeable people are posting about), to outdated, to mis-informed, and flat-out wrong. Sorting the good from the bad, right from wrong, is a skill that I have developed in my career, and I can spot the problems with these AI searches nearly instantly. I fear that many don’t have that same skill, and will be led astray. For now, I will continue to test out AI when traditional searches fail me, but I’m not betting on it being any better anytime soon.
still learning?
One last (and pretty funny) thing to note – I wanted to insert an AI-generated image to this blog post, so I input the following instructions. After each prompt, Copilot presented me with 4 images. I went a few rounds with it before giving up in frustration, and you can see the results below.
- generate an image to use in my blog post on convergencestrat.com which illustrates the use of AI in online search
- generate an image to use in my blog post on convergencestrat.com which illustrates the use of AI in online search, but which doesn’t look too spooky
- maybe include an image of a hard working professional at their desk
- please make the image less cartoon-y and less spooky
- please remove the ghosts
- REMOVE the ghosts
I give up (today at least)!
