Investing General Discussion

  • Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and give us your nominations!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Mario Speedwagon

Mario Speedwagon

Gold Recognition
<Prior Amod>
19,525
72,214
Araysar said:
I agree.

AI can be very effective for top of the funnel, 5W1H queries. The real problem it runs into is that as you move from top of the sales funnel to the bottom where a sale (aka profit) is made, AI utterly fails there. The most basic example is buying some appliance. Let's say you need a new washing machine. You Google "best washing machines" and you get top 10 lists, reviews, pricing that changes regularly, etc. AI simply can't provide an effective answer to that type of query. But it can tell you what you should consider when buying a washing machine, which is a 5WH1 query.
Click to expand...
Searching for “best X” is pretty much a complete waste of time anyways unless you add “reddit” to the query these days anyways. Every result you get from a query like that is ads disguised as an article, a high portion of which I suspect are written by AI anyways. It is increasingly more difficult to find good or relevant results to any query and the more AI is introduced in the searching process, the more this loop of garbage is going to be reinforced. Results will only continue to become worse and worse but in a way that you can only tell if you know what inorganic search results look like. I don’t think the majority of people can make this distinction, so if AI is weighting what it returns based on what people look at, it will only continue to degrade itself, consistently serving up the worst slop.

I am looking forward to a future where websites essentially don’t exist anymore for the average person and the “internet” basically just becomes an AI portal where you input a query or command and are served a result with the majority of people never interfacing with a website themselves.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions: 2 users
Araysar

Loser Araysar

Chief Russia Reporter. Stock Pals CEO. Head of AI.
<Gold Donor>
80,132
160,295
Mario Speedwagon said:
Searching for “best X” is pretty much a complete waste of time anyways unless you add “reddit” to the query these days anyways. Every result you get from a query like that is ads disguised as an article, a high portion of which I suspect are written by AI anyways. It is increasingly more difficult to find good or relevant results to any query and the more AI is introduced in the searching process, the more this loop of garbage is going to be reinforced. Results will only continue to become worse and worse but in a way that you can only tell if you know what inorganic search results look like. I don’t think the majority of people can make this distinction, so if AI is weighting what it returns based on what people look at, it will only continue to degrade itself, consistently serving up the worst slop.

I am looking forward to a future where websites essentially don’t exist anymore for the average person and the “internet” basically just becomes an AI portal where you input a query or command and are served a result with the majority of people never interfacing with a website themselves.
Click to expand...

You're part right and part wrong. You're right in the sense that a lot of the affiliate articles (best X, top 10) can be written by AI and some affiliate websites do that. However, the product selections are typically still hand selected (you dont get paid unless someone buys that iutem and if its a shit item, no one will buy it). There are still sites however that do their own testing to determine product quality and recommendations and they will usually say that upfront as a trust builder.

If you search for "best <product>" and take the first 10 articles and look at the products they suggest, you will see that overwhelmingly they recommend products of high quality and this is either because
1. they crib ideas from sites that have done actual testing (consumer reports, etc.)
2. they rely on user reviews on sites like Amazon, etc. to select products.

AI writing the content isn't necessarily garbage. If you looked at articles written by people 10 years ago before any AI, vs. now, you wouldnt be able to tell what's AI and what isn't with any reasonable accuracy. Human writers oftentimes suck too. The quality of AI writing these days is undoubtedly better than that of human writers.
 
Mist

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Gold Donor>
31,197
23,354
Mario Speedwagon said:
I am looking forward to a future where websites essentially don’t exist anymore for the average person and the “internet” basically just becomes an AI portal where you input a query or command and are served a result with the majority of people never interfacing with a website themselves.
Click to expand...
So you think it'll be better when an "AI" controlled by [Big Tech Dweeb of your choice] dictates the truth to everyone?

Or was that sarcasm?

EDIT: *Narrator voice* It was actually sarcasm.
 
Mario Speedwagon

Mario Speedwagon

Gold Recognition
<Prior Amod>
19,525
72,214
Araysar said:
If you search for "best <product>" and take the first 10 articles and look at the products they suggest, you will see that overwhelmingly they recommend products of high quality
Click to expand...
I would dispute this and would substitute “good enough” for “high quality”, but that’s largely a complaint about the quality of goods in general these days, not necessarily search results. The “good enough” product may very well be the best that’s readily available to the end consumer in whatever category.

The major problem with search results is that reddit, filled with gay retards though it is, is basically the only remaining place on the internet where expert domain knowledge is being posted by an actual person. AI will need to be able to properly index this to return meaningful results, but if people increasingly only interact with this information through an AI instead of actually going to reddit, it will create the issue of less traffic to reddit by actual users, meaning fewer comments, and fewer post interactions and up votes, making it increasingly more difficult for AI to find those valuable posts. I don’t see a way for this issue to be avoided, and more importantly, I don’t see that any of these companies would really care to solve it anyways. The obvious trend is that results will become increasingly homogenized and sourced from “official” sources, all for the purpose of selling you what they want to sell you and giving you the information they want you to see.

I don’t see any indication that AI searches will be positive for the end user in anyway and I don’t think that’s the purpose anyways. But this is the investment thread, so I would recommend buying in because this is almost certainly what’s coming.
 
Mario Speedwagon

Mario Speedwagon

Gold Recognition
<Prior Amod>
19,525
72,214
Mist said:
So you think it'll be better when an "AI" controlled by [Big Tech Dweeb of your choice] dictates the truth to everyone?

Or was that sarcasm?

EDIT: *Narrator voice* It was actually sarcasm.
Click to expand...
Well it will probably be controlled by Jews, so maybe you can guess my real opinion.
 
Araysar

Loser Araysar

Chief Russia Reporter. Stock Pals CEO. Head of AI.
<Gold Donor>
80,132
160,295
Mario Speedwagon said:
I would dispute this and would substitute “good enough” for “high quality”, but that’s largely a complaint about the quality of goods in general these days, not necessarily search results. The “good enough” product may very well be the best that’s readily available to the end consumer in whatever category.

The major problem with search results is that reddit, filled with gay retards though it is, is basically the only remaining place on the internet where expert domain knowledge is being posted by an actual person. AI will need to be able to properly index this to return meaningful results, but if people increasingly only interact with this information through an AI instead of actually going to reddit, it will create the issue of less traffic to reddit by actual users, meaning fewer comments, and fewer post interactions and up votes, making it increasingly more difficult for AI to find those valuable posts. I don’t see a way for this issue to be avoided, and more importantly, I don’t see that any of these companies would really care to solve it anyways. The obvious trend is that results will become increasingly homogenized and sourced from “official” sources, all for the purpose of selling you what they want to sell you and giving you the information they want you to see.

I don’t see any indication that AI searches will be positive for the end user in anyway and I don’t think that’s the purpose anyways. But this is the investment thread, so I would recommend buying in because this is almost certainly what’s coming.
Click to expand...

AI searches will suck but search engine searches already suck too. Zero click searches are killing content producers, disincentivizing content production. Marketing is moving over to social media platforms like Tiktok and Instagram where engagement is better. Email marketing is back to being the #1 marketing channel due to the fact that you own your assets and your audience.

Here's how badly Google searches suck to give you an idea: Nearly 60% of Google searches end without a click in 2024

Everything is fake and gay and even search engine results are homogenized in a giant recursive loop because SEOs will simply use best performing competitor articles for any query to make their own and then build backlinks to them to pump up the rankings.
 
  • 4Like
Reactions: 3 users
Haus

Haus

<Silver Donator>
12,704
49,335
Mist said:
So you think it'll be better when an "AI" controlled by [Big Tech Dweeb of your choice] dictates the truth to everyone?

Or was that sarcasm?

EDIT: *Narrator voice* It was actually sarcasm.
Click to expand...

This is the core of almost everything that has happened since the advent of the Internet (and in some ways before). Are you willing to abdicate your right/responsibility to get good information for yourself through discerning review to an AI knowing it will be being rigged on the back end to feed you what it's owners/masters want with that taking priority above what you want out of it? And in the case of the vast majority of humans on this planet the answer is a "Hell yes, take my money!"

Convenience is the actual tool of authoritarian dictators. It will make you not only surrender your rights, but thank them for taking them. Or as someone famous once said "Most people don't want freedom, they want a just want a benevolent master."
 
Mario Speedwagon

Mario Speedwagon

Gold Recognition
<Prior Amod>
19,525
72,214
Araysar said:
AI searches will suck but search engine searches already suck too. Zero click searches are killing content producers, disincentivizing content production. Marketing is moving over to social media platforms like Tiktok and Instagram where engagement is better. Email marketing is back to being the #1 marketing channel due to the fact that you own your assets and your audience.

Here's how badly Google searches suck to give you an idea: Nearly 60% of Google searches end without a click in 2024

Everything is fake and gay and even search engine results are homogenized in a giant recursive loop because SEOs will simply use best performing competitor articles for any query to make their own and then build backlinks to them to pump up the rankings.
Click to expand...
lmao that’s even worse than I thought it was already. Incredible.
 
  • 1Double Worf
Reactions: 1 user
Kiroy

Kiroy

Marine Biologist
<Bronze Donator>
35,321
102,335
Anytime I search anything ‘forum’ or ‘reddit’ is included in the search, depending on the subject and even that’s getting shitty.
 
  • 3Like
  • 3Solidarity
  • 1Double Worf
Reactions: 6 users
Gravel

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
39,390
129,517
Mario Speedwagon said:
Searching for “best X” is pretty much a complete waste of time anyways unless you add “reddit” to the query these days anyways. Every result you get from a query like that is ads disguised as an article, a high portion of which I suspect are written by AI anyways. It is increasingly more difficult to find good or relevant results to any query and the more AI is introduced in the searching process, the more this loop of garbage is going to be reinforced. Results will only continue to become worse and worse but in a way that you can only tell if you know what inorganic search results look like. I don’t think the majority of people can make this distinction, so if AI is weighting what it returns based on what people look at, it will only continue to degrade itself, consistently serving up the worst slop.

I am looking forward to a future where websites essentially don’t exist anymore for the average person and the “internet” basically just becomes an AI portal where you input a query or command and are served a result with the majority of people never interfacing with a website themselves.
Click to expand...
Funny to find out that other people were doing this too. I hate Reddit, but I've been going there since as you've stated, it seems like the only non-AI written anything.

And yeah, I'd also noticed it not working great lately. Been using duckduckgo and yeah, nothing. Guess they're fucking me now. Great.

Seems like a pretty short sighted decision by reddit to decrease their traffic.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users
ToeMissile

ToeMissile

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
<Gold Donor>
3,168
2,052
Curious on people’s thoughts of Dexcom. Took a 40% hit last Thursday after posting the below #s. GLP1 drugs, and too much focus on OTC availability (while taking their eye off established high$ areas of the business) are the apparent reasons. I haven’t looked into them any further at this point, but seems like potential opportunity



1722142953509.png
www.medtechdive.com

Dexcom shares plunge on lower sales outlook

“I’m just kind of in shock,” an analyst said on the earnings call, asking for more detail on the forecast cut.
www.medtechdive.com www.medtechdive.com

1722144356006.png
 
Borzak

Borzak

Bronze Baron of the Realm
25,443
33,203
They like to "play" the game. They make the continuous glucose monitor I used to have. During covid it would go from 100 to 400 and back down to 100 again in minutes and wouldn't agree to my old finger prick test. I would call and they would pay to have the sensor shipped back for testing. Finally I called and someone that shouldn't talk on the phone gave the real reason. During covid they had to move production from CA to AZ and had issues setting up their new production line.

To me it was not a big deal. A friend his controls his insulin pump and it was doing the same thing. Sounded like a huge potentional class action suit coming up.

I did read they are trying to produce a new continuous glucose monitor you could buy over the counter without prescription.

I don't know why they were moving sensor production. I assumed it was to avoid the CA shutdowns. Guy I talked to multiple times said problems with the clean room they produced in. Who knows.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user
Foler

The_Black_Log Foler

PalsCo CEO - Stock Pals | Pantheon Pals
<Gold Donor>
47,632
42,866
Mario Speedwagon said:
Searching for “best X” is pretty much a complete waste of time anyways unless you add “reddit” to the query these days anyways. Every result you get from a query like that is ads disguised as an article, a high portion of which I suspect are written by AI anyways. It is increasingly more difficult to find good or relevant results to any query and the more AI is introduced in the searching process, the more this loop of garbage is going to be reinforced. Results will only continue to become worse and worse but in a way that you can only tell if you know what inorganic search results look like. I don’t think the majority of people can make this distinction, so if AI is weighting what it returns based on what people look at, it will only continue to degrade itself, consistently serving up the worst slop.

I am looking forward to a future where websites essentially don’t exist anymore for the average person and the “internet” basically just becomes an AI portal where you input a query or command and are served a result with the majority of people never interfacing with a website themselves.
Click to expand...
Now that you mention it, I’ve noticed over the past 6 years or so that I tend to just add Reddit to my best of searches because I don’t see forums really pop up in results any longer.. Like you said it’s usually just articles/ads
 
Lambourne

Lambourne

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,862
6,828
Foler said:
Now that you mention it, I’ve noticed over the past 6 years or so that I tend to just add Reddit to my best of searches because I don’t see forums really pop up in results any longer.. Like you said it’s usually just articles/ads
Click to expand...

Remember when google let you select "discussions" as a tab at the top and it would only show you posts from forums/newsgroups? Removing that gave way to the flood of SEO garbage we have today and probably was a factor in the decline of forums as a means of sharing and preserving knowledge. One of the most evil things they've ever done in my opinion.

I like to wrench on cars and sometimes you need a very specific bit of information (like where is the wiper relay on a 2003 Shitbox) and that information was much easier to find back then. Now it takes me far longer because first I have to scroll through pages of wiper blade ads to find the one forum for brand_X that isn't dead and gone (along with all the knowledge within it) and then do a site-specific search for the information I need. I'm expecting them to remove that ability too by the way things are going.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user
Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
44,495
120,665
Lambourne said:
Remember when google let you select "discussions" as a tab at the top and it would only show you posts from forums/newsgroups? Removing that gave way to the flood of SEO garbage we have today and probably was a factor in the decline of forums as a means of sharing and preserving knowledge. One of the most evil things they've ever done in my opinion.

I like to wrench on cars and sometimes you need a very specific bit of information (like where is the wiper relay on a 2003 Shitbox) and that information was much easier to find back then. Now it takes me far longer because first I have to scroll through pages of wiper blade ads to find the one forum for brand_X that isn't dead and gone (along with all the knowledge within it) and then do a site-specific search for the information I need. I'm expecting them to remove that ability too by the way things are going.
Click to expand...
The shit over the weekend with GOOGL manipulating search results for Trump reminded me why I refused to own the stock for years. I dumped my position this morning at the open. I can do without the alpha from these communist fucks.
 
  • 2Solidarity
Reactions: 1 users
You must log in or register to reply here.