[HN Gopher] Google turned me into a serial killer
___________________________________________________________________
Google turned me into a serial killer
Author : Kaizeras
Score : 554 points
Date : 2021-06-24 18:44 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hristo-georgiev.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hristo-georgiev.com)
| rdiddly wrote:
| Even if I didn't know about the mistake, I would still think idly
| that something was amiss, because that's the best-dressed and
| friendliest-looking goddamn serial killer I've ever seen!
| oblak wrote:
| It's not like most media outlets would show the nicest possible
| picture of someone accused of multiple rapes and murders.
| rdiddly wrote:
| Right, unless maybe they were working some kind of "He was so
| charming, all his victims went willingly blablabla" type
| narrative.
| protomyth wrote:
| Google also has a problem with its news.google.com when they get
| their news from certain sources. Snoopes headlines are shortened
| and put up as if they were true. This resulted into some really
| vile headlines.
| draaglom wrote:
| See also the google results for:
|
| "when was running invented"
|
| "how many terashits does the ps5 have"
| spoonjim wrote:
| If you find the right lawyer you will get at least $1 million out
| of this. Even if you don't feel like doing this, PLEASE do it for
| the greater good. Google will only start caring about these
| things if it costs them money. Money is the only language a
| corporation is fundamentally equipped to understand.
| gumby wrote:
| If I knew the author this would be cool: AFAIK I've never met a
| serial killer!
|
| Of course were I him it might be pretty bad. Serial killer is
| serious enough that people might consider there to have been a
| bug (as there was). But something less outlandish, like a
| misattributed fraud arrest, could have some pretty bad
| consequences.
| flyrain wrote:
| It is still there up to my search. Please fix it, Google.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| You say you should focus on more productive things than suing,
| but suing in this situation seems very productive
| ab_testing wrote:
| I think this is a legit case of defamation and the author should
| be able to sue Google in local courts and get a judgement.
| hpkuarg wrote:
| I'm glad this guy has a sense of humor about this, but I really
| hope that Google does right by him and that he doesn't get stuck
| in their Byzantine customer service process.
| xxs wrote:
| Imagine trying to get a date...
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Lol what? They have customer service process? News to me, how
| to reach them?
| martyvis wrote:
| I found a Google One subscription is helpful for that. It's
| only a few dollars a month, which in fact I fund for free
| using Google Rewards dollars. You then get to speak to a real
| live person that actually respond properly, even with
| handwritten emails.
| jeswin wrote:
| Actually he should sue them. The damage to his reputation and
| prospects are real.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I just looked it up and google does have a workflow that
| allows you to send them a court order.
|
| Let's start there first before issuing a lawsuit. You only
| sue if you can prove damages for defamation. Which, as tepid
| as most people are on here about patent trolls, I can't
| imaging taking on google. It's literally like taking on god
| at this point.
| protomyth wrote:
| Figuring out or demonstrating the "Quantifiably injurious"
| part might be very hard
| https://thelawdictionary.org/article/when-to-sue-for-
| defamat...
| duskwuff wrote:
| Might not be necessary. Many jurisdictions recognize
| certain types of claims, including accusations of serious
| crime, as defamation _per se_ ; no specific proof of harm
| is required.
| paulpauper wrote:
| this is google we're talking about. so good luck with that.
| retrac wrote:
| It's surprisingly easy, just time-involved, to sue large
| corporations in small claims, at least in some
| jurisdictions. Yes, they've got lawyers, but if you have a
| case you may still win. I sued one of the largest telecoms
| in Canada for not honouring a verbal contract, and won
| quite easily once I proved the facts in dispute. Businesses
| assume people won't have the commitment to carry through
| and actually take them to court over malfeasance. Probably
| mostly correctly. I'm not sure it was really worth the
| hassle.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Google is not a typical large corp though. They will
| spend millions on top lawyers for even small cases even
| if settling costs far less, just to make a point that
| they do not lose. If a company shows a willingness to
| settle or they they lose easily, then that makes them
| vulnerable to future litigation. Contingency lawyers will
| not take on companies that do not lose or settle.
| astrange wrote:
| You're replying to a comment that says "in small claims"
| and lawyers don't appear in small claims court. Though I
| don't know about winning vs Google there, just that it's
| worked against Uber.
| H8crilA wrote:
| And you know this because?
| pizza234 wrote:
| I don't agree with the parent's way to put it, however,
| there is at least some truth.
|
| There as been an interesting case - Aaron Greenspan vs
| Google: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-google-
| bothered-to-ap_b_2.... It's a very interesting and even
| entertaining read.
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| Out of curiosity...how did you prove a verbal contract?
| Recordings? 3rd person present as witness? Protocol from
| the verbal contract mailed to yourself?
| retrac wrote:
| I had a recording of the call.
| beerandt wrote:
| I actually had a similar case with AT&T, except they went
| back and listened to their recording of the call and
| confirmed the promise. No need to sue.
| cryptica wrote:
| It's disturbing how often people infer that Google is
| impervious to the law.
| paulpauper wrote:
| That would req. showing that law was broken. I don't
| think in this case it was. More like a mistake.
| ghaff wrote:
| If Google refused to fix it, it might be different. But I
| expect that, if someone were to file a suit, not even
| trying to get it fixed wouldn't be seen as acting in good
| faith.
| inimino wrote:
| Does every person who is impacted by this kind of thing
| have the responsibility to do Google's QC for them? What
| about people who never notice it? Maybe a lawsuit would
| be hopeless, but it sure would be nice to see some kind
| of real consequences here.
| bliteben wrote:
| Meanwhile sending an email to Google asking for something
| to be fixed, could be seen as an act of insanity.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Mistakes can be illegal. Intent only matters for small
| subset of laws.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| He should sue to get it fixed if they don't fix it, but I
| believe he'd have to show evidence of harm if he were to sue
| for damages.
| pavon wrote:
| For libel, you generally have to show harm, but there are
| some claims that are assumed on their face to be damaging
| an no proof of harm is needed (libel per-se). Falsely
| accusing someone of being a serial killer would generally
| fall into this category.
|
| Edit: I think the harder part would be showing that people
| would believe the claim (which legally is separate from
| showing harm). Google could argue that since the box showed
| the serial killer died in the 80's that a reasonable person
| would realize it must be a mistake.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| > Google could argue that since the box showed the serial
| killer died in the 80's that a reasonable person would
| realize it must be a mistake.
|
| A reasonable person would realize which part was a
| mistake: that it's a picture of the serial killer, or
| that the serial killer died in the 80s?
| [deleted]
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Falsely claiming that someone committed a serious crime is
| per se defamation in many jurisdictions. There is no need
| to prove actual damage. It is damaging by definition.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Easy to provide when will be detained at random airport for
| 10 hours until the authorities will triple-check all the
| info until everybody and the janitor will be satisfied.
| People has been stopped to take their fly for much less.
| wicket wrote:
| I don't think it matters whether they fix it or not.
| Evidence help with establishing the severity, but in most
| countries this sort of thing would be classed as defamation
| of character. This guy should be entitled to something and
| ought to sue regardless.
| xxs wrote:
| Right to be forgotten would be much easier to invoke.
|
| Suing in Bulgaria is likely to end up nowhere with Bulgaria
| having the worst courts in the EU (a primary reason not being
| in Schengen)
| schoolornot wrote:
| He'll be lucky if they don't suspend his Google account
| outright for raising the issue.
| gundmc wrote:
| This just seems like a bad faith comment. Is there ANY
| example of a user raising a legitimate concern like this and
| getting banned for it?
|
| This reads like cheap, low-effort bashing.
| RockmanZero wrote:
| this just seems like a google-faith comment.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Google has cheap, low-effort customer support, so I'll
| allow it.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Wait, how does that help? Low quality customer support
| hurts us. Low quality comments also hurt us. That just
| doubles the hurt for me. It doesn't compensate in any
| way.
|
| It's like some guy punching me saying "For the Green
| Team!" and then you come by and punch me saying "For the
| Yellow Team!". Like, dude, you didn't undo the first
| punch. I'm now twice-punched. I want to be zero punched.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Google's (Youtube's specifically) automated processes
| have allowed the rise of extortion via their copyright
| systems using the threat of automatic account deletion.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47227937
|
| Their automated processes _do_ result in account
| deletions, and they intentionally build their systems so
| it is hard to reach humans to resolve complaints, so I
| don 't think that comment was particularly undeserved - I
| read it as jokingly superlative.
| daxfohl wrote:
| They'd probably accidentally suspend the actual serial
| killer's account instead.
| ape4 wrote:
| Bing has also turned him into a serial killer. Its the unique
| name and a Wikipedia entry.
| https://www.bing.com/search?q=hristo+georgiev
| karamanolev wrote:
| Bing has definitely _not_ turned him into a serial killer. The
| main issue is associating his photo (wrongly) with the serial
| killer Wikipedia article. Bing is not doing that and instead
| showing a box with the Wikipedia article (without a photo, as
| it is in Wikipedia) and, separately, other results.
|
| The name is not unique - I personally know two people named
| that and in the whole country, there are probably hundreds. He
| has also stated that.
| html5web wrote:
| bing is not showing his picture though
| firebaze wrote:
| According to the article, the name is not unique at all (for
| his people at least).
| pulse7 wrote:
| I would sue for damage.
|
| EDIT: Because they put an image with unterlated information
| together in such a way that it misleads people.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Damages require proof. Unless they can show they lost something
| because of the mistake, then there are no damages.
| aikah wrote:
| > Damages require proof. Unless they can show they lost
| something because of the mistake, then there are no damages.
|
| You're basing your understanding of slander/libel on US laws
| I presume? If that person lives in Europe, generally, the bar
| for a successful lawsuit is __extremly low__ , it only
| requires the information to be blatantly false, there is no
| need to demonstrate the victim incurred any damages.
| n_u_l_l wrote:
| The barrier for a successful lawsuit is indeed very low,
| and based on my limited understanding, I think you will
| likely win when you demand that Google changes the picture
| on their website. They will likely also have to cover a
| part of your legal costs.
|
| However if we are talking about monetary damages, those
| require hard proof of the damages and even then it is
| unlikely that they will have to pay all damages. Most
| lawyers I talk to usually recommend against suing for
| monetary damages.
| aikah wrote:
| > However if we are talking about monetary damages, those
| require hard proof of the damages and even then it is
| unlikely that they will have to pay all damages. Most
| lawyers I talk to usually recommend against suing for
| monetary damages.
|
| Well, you can ask for "moral damages" and the judge might
| grant you these damages in Europe, I'm pretty sure the
| bar is also quite low for these. If you are from US keep
| in mind that million dollars damage verdicts are rather
| uncommon in Europe for individuals. That's the trade off.
| So judges might grant the suing party "moral damages"
| much more easily as a counter part. Of course it varies
| from country to country. IANAL.
| techlaw wrote:
| Although in the US damages for defamation can include
| compensatory damages (intended to "make the plaintiff whole"
| by compensating for monetary losses) they can also include
| general damages for non-economic impacts (for example mental
| anguish & damage to reputation) as well as other types of
| damages.
|
| However, not all US states allow _all_ types of damage claims
| and /or have special rules or higher burdens of proof related
| to those types of claims.
|
| Generally speaking though, it is incorrect to say that
| somebody must show that they have had actual, monetary
| damages in order to be successful in a defamation lawsuit.
|
| This overview from the Legal Information Institute (Cornell
| Law School) has some helpful info:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation
| jeswin wrote:
| It could certainly affect someone's mental health and
| confidence.
| andai wrote:
| Isn't the search result page a form of slander? The burden of
| proof rests entirely on the slanderer.
| elliotbnvl wrote:
| > _Maybe letting a single internet company "organize the world's
| information" probably isn't such a great idea. Some food for
| thought._
|
| When put like this, the thought that one company controls
| virtually all information flow on the Internet is more than
| mildly terrifying.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| Luckily for me, my name is the same as a formerly popular folk
| musician who lived near my hometown and made songs whose titles
| had my hometown's name in it.
|
| And let's not forget credentials. How many accounts depend on
| your GMail address? I don't know for you, but for me it
| encompasses most of the aspect of my life from banking to video
| games.
|
| Which reminds me of this story: https://archive.is/EVrDv
|
| > In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was
| destroyed. First my Google account was taken over, then
| deleted. Next my Twitter account was compromised, and used as a
| platform to broadcast racist and homophobic messages. And worst
| of all, my AppleID account was broken into, and my hackers used
| it to remotely erase all of the data on my iPhone, iPad, and
| MacBook.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Yes, and a dozen or two people, mostly white males, control the
| company.
| vecplane wrote:
| Is Sundar Pichai a white male?
| nasmorn wrote:
| I think he is so rich now he can basically be considered
| white for purposes of discussing his privilege.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| A trans-white. Are poor whites trans-black then?
| rcoveson wrote:
| What a take! "Success and non-whiteness are
| incompatible."
|
| For the purpose of discussing the lack of privilege of
| homeless people, should we consider them black?
|
| It's almost as if race is just a confusing distraction in
| conversations about privilege!
| sophacles wrote:
| What a take!
|
| Here's some mic spam I heard the other day when gaming:
|
| "There's all sorts of N*s - light brown, dark brown, even
| white ones. ...<other examples>... and even the homeless
| guy on the corner is a N"
|
| It's not the first time I've heard this sentiment, and
| presumably not the last.
|
| Perhaps race (and gender, sexuality, wealth, etc) are
| related to privilege. I mean they are used to justify why
| entire groups of people deserve more or less privilege.
| Maybe those things are aren't "just a confusing
| distraction" but their associated 'isms' drive the issue
| of privilege.
|
| Or maybe they are divisions used to distract from the
| privileges as you say.
|
| Either way, dismissing race as just a distraction, that
| is to treat different facets of a bigger problem as
| unrelated, seems like an attempt to quash any discussion
| of the whole.
| rcoveson wrote:
| > ...he can basically be considered white for purposes of
| discussing his privilege.
|
| This is a distraction, and a confusing one. Calling that
| out is not an "attempt to quash any discussion". Let's
| discuss race when race is relevant, and the other 90% of
| the time let's discuss economic privilege.
| Huwyt_Nashi046 wrote:
| Are the White men in the room with us right now? Do they hide
| under your bed and in your closet?
|
| Boo!
| nusaru wrote:
| > mostly white males
|
| What is this supposed to imply, exactly?
| sidlls wrote:
| An extreme reading: white men of the past and (some) of the
| present were/are racist, therefore we all are.
|
| It should go without saying that (probably) isn't a
| charitable reading.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| It boggles my mind how we went from a google search
| result to white supremacy.
|
| I'd like people to please exercise restraint, the world
| feels like it is falling apart where every conversation
| becomes political/racial. If this is going on HN, I
| wonder how it is elsewhere.
| sidlls wrote:
| Yeah, it's a bit much. The "extreme" reading is slowly
| becoming the only acceptable one. Partly because of
| comments like the one precipitating the thread: there's
| no good reason to try to connect these items.
| cratermoon wrote:
| I never said they were racist. What does it mean that
| someone would assume I meant that?
| brinfan wrote:
| He's pointing out that Larry page and sergey brin are both
| Jewish, its a common antisemitic / alt right "dog whistle".
| z3ncyberpunk wrote:
| whining about white people is the tactic of modern woke
| radical leftists, definitely not alt right who would
| gladly love all the white representation to further their
| own racist agenda. idk where you got that dumb thought
| from
| Tenoke wrote:
| The 'white males are the enemy of the people' is such a
| leftist trope that it's almost hard for me to believe
| someone thinks it's an alt right dog whistle.
| brinfan wrote:
| Yeah I'm just having a laugh, hn will unperson this
| account in a moment.
| fungiblecog wrote:
| It's the old correlation/causation problem. Being white
| is at the present time in history correlated wih
| privilege. But being white isn't the problem. The problem
| is how the privileged use it to lock out everyone else
| from the benefits they enjoy. Race and such like are
| irrelevant distractions.
| [deleted]
| gundmc wrote:
| I'm not sure what the implication here is, but regardless it
| doesn't seem to be true.
|
| According to this source, only 3 of the 10 "key people" are
| white and male.
|
| https://craft.co/alphabet/executives
| cratermoon wrote:
| Board members don't have the direct control that you think.
| Neither do all the C-level officers. It's a basic fact of
| organizations that people that make the key decisions
| aren't necessarily the ones with the titles.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| It seems that they do, but they don't. Plenty of information
| flows through emails, chat, social media, direct search on
| websites like Amazon. The internet is large, and Google is a
| very big player, but they're not controlling all the
| information flow on the internet, and if they really tried
| people would leave.
| bingidingi wrote:
| How much email flows through gmail? Should Amazon have 50% of
| all ecommerce transaction data? How much of the chat space
| and social media does Facebook own?
|
| You're not wrong, but I think rather than bringing up
| counter-examples, you've produced a list of similar problems.
|
| When someone tries to find a new website someone told them
| about for the first time... what % of that is filtered
| through Google? If it's a majority, which I suspect it is,
| then it's still definitely a problem.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| > they're not controlling all the information flow on the
| internet, and if they really tried people would leave.
|
| I am not sure about that. People are generally slow to change
| habits, especially that Google's control will not grow in a
| sudden fashion, but rather incrementally.
| haswell wrote:
| That Google controls/censors information is well established
| [0].
|
| The side effects of their search algorithms and how they
| control the flow of information has also been a topic of
| regular discussion/scrutiny for many years (just one example
| here [1])
|
| > _and if they really tried people would leave_
|
| Where would they go?
|
| - [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google
|
| - [1] https://mindmatters.ai/2019/07/google-engineer-reveals-
| searc...
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| I know you're trying to make a point about censorship
| existing, but I'm not sure if loli porn and scam online
| pharmacies were really contributing to the internet.
| haswell wrote:
| I agree with you; however, that's kind of the point.
| Google has the power to organize and control a
| significant amount of information. These statements are
| very different:
|
| - Google doesn't censor anything
|
| - Google censors things that a lot of people agree are
| offensive
|
| The 2nd gets into tricky territory, because not everyone
| agrees on what is/is not offensive. I happen to think
| that most of the things they remove are probably good to
| remove. But the implication is still that Google wields
| (and at times uses) enormous power.
|
| Things get even more grey (and potentially problematic)
| when you get into ranking algorithms, which have the
| power to sway opinions on major topics/events.
|
| And as you mentioned, my parent comment is also a
| response to the very direct (and incorrect) claim:
|
| > _It seems that they do [control information], but they
| don 't._
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Well yeah, but you now have listed basicly 3 companies with
| most of them having a majority market share in their domain.
| (Gmail, FB, FB, Amazon; respectively) Plus google search is
| the end-all-be-all answer. People treat these results as the
| truth.
| teraflop wrote:
| Sci-fi author Greg Egan has written about falling victim to a
| similar phenomenon, where photos of other people were showing up
| next to descriptions of him. No serial killers involved, though.
|
| http://gregegan.net/ESSAYS/GOOGLE/Google.html
| m1117 wrote:
| That post is just a justification and alibi.
| SrslyJosh wrote:
| > The rampant spread of fake news and cancel culture has made
| literally everyone who's not anonymous vulnerable.
|
| Google screwing up their knowledge graph is neither "fake news"
| nor "cancel culture". Misusing these terms makes them useless for
| actual discussion.
| varjag wrote:
| A great ice breaker for your next job interview.
| soneca wrote:
| And a deal breaker for dating apps.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I mean, the fact that the serial killer in question has been
| dead for forty years makes this conclusively "a funny story"
| and not "a red flag". But it also probably is _mandatory_ to
| cover this ice breaker before the person you swiped on
| Googles you.
|
| "Just FYI, funny story, Google thinks I'm a serial killer.
| But that guy's been dead for years, and Google is mixed up."
| dbalatero wrote:
| I've seen how bad people are at skimming things they read
| online though even when the facts are laying there in front
| of them, and I could easily see someone (hiring manager,
| dating app they matched with) just googling their name,
| seeing the same pic match, and instantly running for the
| hills.
| cryptica wrote:
| For most people, if they came across a CV of someone who
| might be a serial killer, they'd want to read the full
| article. It's not something that happens every day.
| dhosek wrote:
| A common error is to assume that one's own views are
| those of "most people." Experience has taught me
| otherwise.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Google probably doesn't even render the birthday on
| mobile.
| stordoff wrote:
| With Safari on a iPhone 11 Pro Max, I get the same
| infobox as in the article (showing birthday/date of
| death).
|
| Amusingly, I also get recommended a TEDx video titled
| "Hristo Georgiev: How to deceive Artificial
| Intelligence". Mission accomplished?
| ghaff wrote:
| And, especially if it were something less extreme than
| serial killer and dates/location seemed plausible at
| first glance (or not--as you say skimming), a lot of
| people doing some quick resume triage will see the fraud
| conviction and move on.
| andai wrote:
| You'd be surprised...
| [deleted]
| cwkoss wrote:
| You should seriously consider suing for defamation if this isn't
| fixed within a few days. This is an egregious error, especially
| if it was done by an automated system (and this could be a
| systemic issue affecting many others).
|
| I think you have a decent chance of getting a five figure+
| settlement from this. Talk to a lawyer about your options.
|
| EDIT: When I search "Hristo Georgiev" (from US IP) there is no
| longer an image in the infobox. (As of 21:55:10 UTC, June 24,
| 2021)
|
| I think a google engineer saw this HN post :-D
|
| (You could still talk to a lawyer - remedying it now does not
| alter the fact that you were previously defamed. But Google has a
| stronger position having now remedied it)
| AdamGibbins wrote:
| In many countries you can't sue for defamation as easily as you
| appear to be able to the US. In the UK its required that you
| demonstrate loss or reputational damage, given how obvious it
| is that this is a mistake and the speed in which it was fixed,
| I think its highly unlikely to stand up in court. Simply
| calling someone a name isn't enough.
|
| OP appears to be in Switzerland, where I'm not familiar with
| the laws.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| A post further down by neil_s, about 2 hours ago (20:21 UTC),
| says they filed a bug with the knowledge graph team at Google.
|
| Direct link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27622100
| Kaizeras wrote:
| Author here - Given that I'm not in the US puts me at a
| disadvantage. But if you can forward me a good lawyer who is
| willing to work with me on this, I may give it a shot.
| Cheezemansam wrote:
| >I think you have a decent chance of getting a five figure+
| settlement from this.
|
| Against Google? I am more inclined to think the dude is
| _actually_ a serial killer than that he has a chance of winning
| a defamation suit.
| cwkoss wrote:
| "Google wrongly called me a serial killer" is a story many
| news outlets would love to run. He has the capacity to give
| them massive amounts of bad press, in a time where US
| regulators and politicians are closely looking at the dangers
| of automated algorithms from tech monopolies.
|
| I think he has a very good chance of receiving a _settlement_
| , Google will not want to take this to court.
| temp8964 wrote:
| We are lucky because Google is not running a DNA service.
| Otherwise, who knows whether they will link to him to a
| serial killer.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Although weirdly enough 23 & Me's CEO Anne Wojcicki is
| Sergey Brin's ex-wife.
| perihelions wrote:
| Also her sister is the CEO of YouTube.
|
| *(According to a Wikipedia article subject to
| "Wikipedia:Biographies of Living Persons" scrutiny -- not
| some random ML garbage).
| yongjik wrote:
| I think it was Rachel - many years ago, for a few days, when you
| search "Rachel" at Google it would show a snippet from Wikipedia:
|
| > Rachel was a Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two
| wives, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve
| progenitors of the tribes of Israel ...
|
| ... along with a happy smiling face of some office worker
| somewhere, named Rachel, of course. It was glorious.
| throwaway789256 wrote:
| And Twitter turned me into an a*hole. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| varispeed wrote:
| Were you ever emailing a company a serial number of a device or
| told your friends that you made a killer deal on something?
|
| Probably that's why :-)
|
| Please don't kill me.
| dave0585 wrote:
| Such nice smile on a corporate picture, that's hilarious
| frumper wrote:
| This is a winning headline. It's got drama and levity that just
| drew me in. Bravo sir.
|
| edit: The article was an interesting read too.
| html5web wrote:
| Google your name from time to time. I do it to protect my
| personal information. I don't want my personal information,
| including my home address, email, phone number etc. to be exposed
| on search.
| Tenoke wrote:
| I literally just got my wallet back because someone Googled me,
| and could find an email easily since my site ranks well for my
| name so there's definitely some benefit to being exposed.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Having your personal email on your personal website is a
| little different from someone having posted your home address
| and phone # on some 'pay us money for people's personal info'
| website, though, and the latter is what you're going to spot
| by doing searches
| ghaff wrote:
| Some things are public records or, like email, are pretty much
| inevitably exposed if you do things in public. But fortunately
| a lot of the "deep web" stuff that used to be free generally
| isn't any longer. (And cell phone numbers aren't accessible
| nearly as much as landlines were.)
| jetrink wrote:
| The info boxes sometimes contain surprising errors. I recently
| searched for Picasa and was informed that it was invented by
| Pablo Picasso in 2002! Google 'knows' Picasso died in the 1970s
| and it 'knows' he released a popular software program in 2002.
| That's an obvious contradiction requiring the simplest of rules
| to detect, but the system is just a dumb text extractor.
| (Interestingly, Google assistant gave the correct answer for 'who
| created Picasa?' so that system must use a different knowledge-
| base.)
|
| I, being compulsively helpful, reported the error and it was
| quickly fixed. Maybe I'm part of the problem.
| Someone wrote:
| In this case, we also several hints that the guy is dead:
|
| - "Hristo Bogdanov Georgiev [...] was a Bulgarian rapist and
| serial killer"
|
| - "Cause of Death: Execution by hanging"
|
| - "Died: August 28, 1980 (aged 23-24)"
|
| Yet we also have
|
| - Born: 1956 (age 65 years)
|
| Also, if they don't exactly know at what age he died, how do
| they know he would be 65 now, and not 64?
|
| I think Google can do better, but not at the scale they need to
| cover all bases in Google search.
| Oak_ wrote:
| Interesting enough it tells me that he was executed by firing
| squad and not hanged. So do the screenshots of the source.
| "Cause of death: Execution by shooting"
|
| If you copied that correctly then that would imply that these
| results are personalized?
| Someone wrote:
| The article only has screen shots, so I had to type it, and
| probably made a mistake.
| smsm42 wrote:
| It's obvious for you, a human. There's no human curating those
| results (it's completely infeasible at Google's scales) and
| their graph building algorithms are extremely dumb. They are
| proprietary, but all of them are, so I'm sure Google's are too.
| The rules that could be added are obvious for each case, but
| there are trillions of possible cases, and there's no feasible
| way to create rules for even a small percent of them. So what
| you get is a giant mess of data that kinda sorta works most of
| the time, and spectacularly fails on any exception or
| complicated scenario. That's what we pay for doing such a
| massive information processing with such a relatively small
| amount of resources.
| ddulaney wrote:
| I'd push back on the idea that human curation is infeasable
| at Google's scales. It might be more costly, but remember
| that Wikipedia did roughly the same task (accurate-enough
| text + image descriptions for every reasonable topic) with
| only volunteer time. There are under 10 million wiki pages,
| and nobody would claim English Wikipedia has any major
| uncovered areas. For a large-but-doable investment of, say, a
| billion USD, Google could spend $100 worth of human curation
| per Wikipedia topic. That represents a few minutes time for a
| skilled expert or a few hours time for an unskilled reviewer.
| Once you start refining your topic list, you can do even
| better than that.
| Arnavion wrote:
| A few days ago, a person in an IRC channel I'm in was convinced
| AMD GPUs have CUDA cores, because they put "amd 5500rx cuda
| cores" into Google, saw the infobox entry that said "How many
| CUDA cores does a Rx 5700 have? 2,560 CUDA cores" and
| stubbornly refused to accept Google could be wrong.
|
| Amusingly that same infobox then has a table that states "2,560
| stream processors" in the "Radeon RX 5700 XT" column. So one
| half of the ML parsed the web page correctly, presumably into
| some internal non-ambiguous representation, but then the other
| half of the ML interpreted it incorrectly anyway. Also, the
| "5500rx" (search query), "Rx 5700" (infobox title) and "RX 5700
| XT" (infobox table header) are three different cards with
| different numbers of stream processors.
|
| And people wonder why ML gets a bad rep.
| breakingcups wrote:
| It's so strange, that infobox has _never_ given me an
| accurate answer or an _accurate question_! What I mean by
| that is, it will find some snippet that sort of looks like it
| answers the question, but it 's nearly always misleading.
| It's either lacking context, creating a question that doesn't
| make sense or just plain wrong. I avoid the thing like the
| plague and look for real answers in the actual search results
| (which are often the same pages, but at least provide context
| as to what question they are answering and how)
| lostlogin wrote:
| It starts to get pretty circular when you consider that GPUs
| can be used for ML.
| js4ever wrote:
| Indeed, especially when AI/ML decide to ban your account with
| no recourse and no explanation ...
| smsm42 wrote:
| ML is not at fault - it's probably doing what it's trained to
| do. It's the marketing that makes people expect that if ML
| blackbox managed to do a couple of parlor tricks like
| distinguishing a cat from a banana and faking something
| resembling a human-written text, if you don't look too
| closely, then it's almost as good as a human brain. It's not.
| It's pretty much as dumb as a refrigerator (a very complex
| one, with many many buttons, but still a refrigerator). So
| you shouldn't expect too much from it, and then there's no
| reason to give it bad rep.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I searched for what year Ben Franlkin freed his slaves and was
| told 1863.
|
| Hell of a feat, since he died in 1790.
| tanto wrote:
| Is not really hard to imagine that more automation of this kind
| might result in some automated processes which results in someone
| get shot at a border by light handed policy.
|
| This kind of thing should have very hard legal consequences for a
| company like Google.
|
| Imagine being labeled as some kind of murder/rapist/pedophile
| whatever and moving into a neighborhood which gets angry fast.
| romseb wrote:
| Suggestion: Create a new Wikipedia article with the same Name,
| upload your own profile photo onto it and put a Disambiguation
| (Programmer/Hacker) in it so that Google will associate it
| correctly.
|
| Alternatively, add a drawing of the rapist to the original
| Wikipedia article.
|
| Interestingly, for me, another Hristo (german principal
| investigator) appears on the right side when I google the name.
| ishiz wrote:
| > Suggestion: Create a new Wikipedia article with the same
| Name, upload your own profile photo onto it and put a
| Disambiguation (Programmer/Hacker) in it so that Google will
| associate it correctly.
|
| That Wikipedia article would probably meet the criteria for
| Speedy Deletion and just causes unnecessary effort for the
| Wikipedia editors.
| xxs wrote:
| No way he'd be able to add an article about himself. He'd need
| to be somewhat famous/notable for the article to stick...
| heavyset_go wrote:
| It's against Wikipedia's rules to create articles about
| yourself.
| Tenoke wrote:
| You'd be surprised to learn how hard it is to add anything to
| Wikipedia and have it stay accepted.
| hadlock wrote:
| I added the wiki page for Kamala Harris' dad (a professor) to
| wikipedia (shortly after Biden announced her as his running
| mate in the election), and within literally 2 minutes, two
| different people had flagged it for deletion. One reason
| given was that academics need to be especially notable to
| warrant a wiki page, completely ignoring his relation to her
| daughter, which was mentioned in the original draft of the
| article stub. All proposals for deletion have since been
| removed, but I was surprised at the ferocity at which users
| want to delete new articles.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's definitely a deletionist cult within Wikipedia.
| While acknowledging that it shouldn't be a dumping ground
| for essentially individual web pages, it goes too far IMO
| for people who have clear documented credentials and public
| history. This favors certain occupations over others of
| course--including academics, journalists, etc.--who have
| public bios, papers/articles, and often articles about
| them. But deletionist tendencies in these areas tend to
| work against claims that it's all about verifiability.
| nomoreusernames wrote:
| blows my mind that people didnt see this coming. and these guys
| want self driving cars. and all i ever wanted was a hoverboard
| that can go over water AND land. maybe fly an x wing. already it
| in VR. so im pretty ok with that. pretty disappointed that the
| future isnt more like the jetsons. it should go flintstones ->
| looneytunes -> jetsons
| [deleted]
| tytso wrote:
| I don't see what the big deal here. The serial killer really did
| exist, and has the same name as the author of the blog post.
| Searching for "Hristo Georgiev" using Bing and DuckDuckGo turns
| up the article about the serial killer as the first link. Why is
| this not "DuckDuckGo turned me into a serial killer", other than
| people hating on Google?
|
| Suppose his name was "Thomas Edison"; would the title of the
| article then read, "How Google turned me into the inventor of the
| light bulb"?
|
| Or suppose someone shared the name, with say, Slobodan Milosevic;
| is it Google's fault that a web search of that person's name
| turns up articles about someone who was charged with genocide and
| other war crimes?
| gwoplock wrote:
| >Why is this not "DuckDuckGo turned me into a serial killer",
| other than people hating on Google?
|
| I think it is mostly Google using his picture with the
| incorrect description below. I feel that is harder to catch for
| someone taking a quick glance than if the correct picture was
| used.
| imperistan wrote:
| the big deal is that the author's photo is shown next to the
| information about the serial killer. If that wasn't the case,
| it wouldn't have been a problem of course.
| objectivetruth wrote:
| The photo that Google shows in the results is the problem, NOT
| a link to the Wiki article.
|
| Google put a picture of Hristo-the-NON-serial-killer alongside
| a small article about Hristo-the-serial-killer. You really
| don't think that's a "big deal" to the Non-Serial-Killer?
| varjag wrote:
| The photo in the Google summary card is that of the author, not
| of the serial killer.
| ashtonbaker wrote:
| You may have missed that the photograph is not a photograph of
| the serial killer, but rather the author of the blog post.
| thecsw wrote:
| The whole point of the post is that Google grabbed his picture
| and attached it to the search card of said killer, so it looks
| like he is that person not only by name, but by first searched
| photo as well.
| dannyphantom wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27477797
|
| 17:19 Quick search shows your image has been removed from the
| right side panel.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| This kind of thing is part of why I go ask people questions in
| areas where I don't have a lot of domain knowledge rather than
| just search for it. (That's not to imply I don't do a search
| first. That seems awkwardly worded and I can't think of a better
| way to say it.)
|
| I'm a decent read of people and talented at figuring out who
| actually makes sense and should be listened to. So going to
| people with domain knowledge and talking to them is usually the
| most efficient and effective means for me to get meaningful
| information when I am out of my depth.
|
| It's also why I try to be patient with people online and answer
| seemingly "dumb" questions instead of telling people to google
| it. In many cases, if you aren't familiar with the subject, you
| won't know the best search terms and you won't know that the top
| result is commercial garbage and not really the gold standard
| source on the subject.
|
| I routinely provide links for things like SRO because not only do
| people often not know that stands for Single Room Occupancy, if
| you google it you get a variety of unrelated hits (Standing Room
| Only, for example).
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy
|
| I was involved for a time with The TAG Project. I generally try
| to remember to provide a link for that as well because when I
| search for it, the thing I was involved with is not the top hit.
|
| The top hit is thetagproject.com. I worked for tagfam.org and it
| is typically the third hit when I search for it.
|
| I fairly often see people being obnoxious about "you should
| Google that" and I sometimes understand why they are aggravated
| with certain things, but I generally think that's asshole
| behavior.
| make3 wrote:
| He still shows up as the image of a serial killer to me
| teawrecks wrote:
| Nice try, serial killer ;)
| prezjordan wrote:
| The riff on cancel culture sort of soured the entire post for me,
| to be honest. But otherwise I really enjoyed this read and hope
| you get it sorted out.
| armatav wrote:
| Thankfully you already have a job - next job should be journalism
| with a title like that, lmfao - 10/10
| exporectomy wrote:
| This kind of mixup isn't too rare. I remember Googling "sigmoid"
| used to show a mixture of information about the function and the
| colon as if they were the same thing. There was also a famous
| case of something like "7 deadly sins" showing a rainbow flag for
| the sin of pride. It's creepy because it's presented in such a
| well designed integrated way yet a completely ridiculous mistake
| that a human wouldn't make.
| nerbert wrote:
| Yeah, I've been googling people in the last months (job search,
| interview prep) and google is really bad with homonyms.
| Occurrences like in this article is the norm when you're not
| looking for someone famous. Says a lot that Google rolled it
| out.
| tpmx wrote:
| Ha.
|
| Just googled my own name. I know there are ~5 living people
| with the same semi-unusual name. They now show wikipedia text
| for an 18th century person (with the same name) along with a
| great 2020ish color photo of one of other currently living
| people with this name.
|
| I've purposefully kept my few necessary online photos in
| grayscale, perhaps that helps ever so slightly with their
| brilliant industry leading AI algorithms...
| tzs wrote:
| > It turns out that Google's knowledge graph algorithm somehow
| falsely associated my photo with the Wikipedia article about the
| serial killer. Which is also surprisingly strange because my name
| isn't special or unique at all; there are literally hundreds of
| other people with my name, and despite of all that, my personal
| photo ended up being associated with a serial killer. I can't
| really explain to myself how this happened, but it's weird. In
| any case, I am now in the process of reporting this Knowledge
| Graph bug to Google.
|
| I believe that there is a simpler explanation.
|
| The Wikipedia article is there in that side box because it is the
| top hit for "hristo georgiev" on Google's main search page. The
| picture is there because it is the top hit for "hristo georgiev"
| on Google's image search page.
| inimino wrote:
| Yes, but: the text snippet is clearly labeled "Wikipedia" and
| is in the same box with the photo. Combined with the Wikipedia
| article being the first result, this would certainly give the
| average person casually searching the impression that the data
| in the box comes from Wikipedia, which tends to be a reasonably
| accurate, conservative source on living persons.
|
| The idea of mashing up the first image search result with the
| wikipedia snippet with no indication they are from totally
| unrelated sources seems pretty careless and irresponsible.
| cwkoss wrote:
| That the explanation is simple doesn't make the result any less
| obscenely defamatory.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| "That explanation is the same explanation"
|
| Or rather, all the knowledge graphic does is stuff not much
| more complicated than associate picture to name to article.
|
| But what is pernicious is that presents itself as a knowledge
| graph and sometimes appears to have knowledge and so it seems
| to people to be a somewhat authoritative statement. And that
| causes people not-critically-thinking people to reach false and
| destructive beliefs.
| architectonic wrote:
| That's exactly what a serial killer would say!
| DevKoala wrote:
| When solving problems at scale with a 0.0000001% error rate ends
| up destroying someone's life.
| H8crilA wrote:
| The error rate is way, way higher than that. But yes, still
| low, and that's what almost certainly happened here.
| DevKoala wrote:
| I was just throwing a number. I don't work at Google, but I
| have heard from friends who work at that scale that when bugs
| only affect a few thousand people, it is "safe" to ship.
| pvaldes wrote:
| I hope he don't try to fly, or take a train, or cross a frontier
| in a few years, or things could escalate really fast. Some people
| wouldn't need much more excuses to shoot first and ask later.
|
| I wonder if the local sheriff could give him a small signed note
| explaining the problem to be shown to other policemen just in
| case. To assure at least that the local police in this place is
| aware of the situation (maybe ask them directly for advice?)
| could avoid future troubles.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| That seems like defamation too. Some legal consequences on
| Google's end if you ever pursued it.
| smdz wrote:
| Similar mismatch stuff exists with Google Scholar on two patent
| applications(now abandoned) where I contributed. It has my name
| but somebody else's photo and job title. Cannot apply to correct
| it just because I do not have any University email.
| ISL wrote:
| Of course, with a blog post and an HN article, algorithms for
| decades will now say, "Yep. $(THAT_GUY) <--> $(SERIAL_KILLER)".
| okareaman wrote:
| Life ruined, he goes insane and becomes a serial killer
| rongenre wrote:
| and a time-traveller
| bjarneh wrote:
| Ultimate click bate title.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >I am now in the process of reporting this Knowledge Graph bug to
| Google.
|
| In an ironic twist, the process of trying to get support from
| Google will probably drive him to become a serial killer.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's actually pretty simple: click the Feedback button,
| identify the flawed data, and explain the need to correct it.
|
| _That_ dataflow is human-curated.
| [deleted]
| dqpb wrote:
| Could he sue for slander?
| FabHK wrote:
| (IIRC, libel is about written defamatory falsehoods, while
| slander is about spoken defamatory falsehoods.)
| silviot wrote:
| Archived version of the google search for "Hristo Georgiev":
| https://archive.is/ZizdK
| neartheplain wrote:
| Google's Knowledge Graph info boxes are automatically-generated
| and littered with errors. I've been burned twice on operating
| hours, once for my local bank and once for a convenience store,
| driving over each time only to find the place closed. In both
| cases, the correct hours were posted on the business's website.
| I've also seen bad KG results for medical conditions, listing the
| wrong symptoms or describing easily-treatable maladies as
| "Incurable". Now I actively ignore the info box and intentionally
| click through to an authoritative non-Google website.
|
| To a non-technical user, I'm sure the box looks like a human-
| curated result which they're more likely to trust. Maybe that's
| the goal of Google's UI choices. Couldn't be further from the
| truth.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > . In both cases, the correct hours were posted on the
| business's website
|
| Google has started favoring info inputted into the Google My
| Business listing (the same one that dictates what appears in
| Google Maps for claimed businesses), so if the owners are
| updating their website but not updating that (or checking their
| email for emails from google that say '[business], are you open
| on 4th of July?') it'll show incorrect info.
| neartheplain wrote:
| Even if 90% of businesses play along (doing Google's data
| entry work for them), the 10% chance of my wasting half an
| hour makes it worth ignoring the info box and double-checking
| each time.
| clydethefrog wrote:
| It has also been a waste of working hours at our offices. I
| work at libraries and am responsible for the communication
| towards visitors -- we are slowly opening up all our venues
| again with lifting of corona measures, which mean we need
| to update our opening times. With one click I can reverse
| them on our own website but I have to update every location
| manually on google results. Anyone can also change these
| opening times plus they might just change them again based
| on some third party website that scrapes outdated opening
| times.
| da_chicken wrote:
| That's still Google's fault. If their service is providing
| out-of-date information, it's _their_ fault. Making it sound
| like the business 's fault for not using Google's other
| service is just reinforcing the idea that Google's
| information is the only information that's real.
|
| This is the problem with the web search and scaping provider
| also trying to be a thousand other services at the same time.
| It's a constant conflict of interest.
| dntrkv wrote:
| > That's still Google's fault. If their service is
| providing out-of-date information, it's their fault.
|
| Huh? If the business owners aren't updating the correct
| info in My Business, how can that possibly be Google's
| fault?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Because this means My Business is not fit for purpose.
| Google is a _web_ search engine, not a Google proprietary
| DB search engine.
| freedomben wrote:
| As far as I can tell the KG is also the source for Google Home
| when it answers questions. That's even more rough since it
| sounds authoritative and there are no visual cues to imply that
| it may be inferred.
| slipframe wrote:
| Technology Connections had a great observation about this in
| his video about touch lamps: the problem with Google's
| knowledge graph is that it _takes everything it reads on the
| internet at face value._
|
| https://youtu.be/TbHBHhZOglw?t=58 (0:58 through 4:20)
| agumonkey wrote:
| > takes everything it reads on the internet at face value.
|
| it's terrible but a lot of people [0] think digital
| information, and thus internet, is truth
|
| [0] and if google itself falls for this.. no wonder if people
| do too
| gatorcode wrote:
| Google isn't interested in truth, they are interested in
| information. They are provide a search engine not a truth
| engine.
|
| Sarcasm aside, how do we propose they determine what is
| truth? If we assume the internet is full of information and
| more truthful than not, then Google's assumption could be
| accurate. Of course they do try and solve this with the
| knowledge graph and expert curation. Connections to
| verified information might give validity to that
| information, but not always.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| That doesn't need to be sarcasm, because it's true: at
| its core, Google's search is a method of finding
| information, not a method of directly ascertaining truth.
| It's not really possible for it to be a truth engine, and
| if you realize that, it's not even a flaw. You're left
| with a way of finding information you will need to
| evaluate for yourself, which is fine.
|
| The problem is in the presentation: Google's tools in
| general, not limited to search, _present_ themselves as
| though they can identify truth. That 's the flaw, the
| lie, if you prefer.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Given that they are actively curating the information and
| censoring "misinformation", they certainly _think_ they
| are a truth engine. And present it this way. Of course
| you 'd only believe it if you believe Google is
| omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _Google isn't interested in truth, they are interested in
| information. They are provide a search engine not a truth
| engine_
|
| Google has been transitioning to attempting to provide a
| "truth engine" for several years. Whenever I try a
| complex key-word search, it suggests a question format
| for it (often with worse result but sometimes OK). When I
| have finally got the key words down to filter just what I
| want, google whines about "Not very many results, here's
| what you should do..." and, of course, Google often gives
| explicit answers for questions in it's search results (a
| notable percentage of which are wrong as noted).
|
| And Google being _half-assed_ truth engine is all sorts
| of bad...
| agumonkey wrote:
| I don't, I stopped caring about truthes, at least in a
| large scale social context.. now if someone could tell
| this to the world.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| if you peek outside of math/physics it's pretty much
| landscape of relative truths; imho ideal thruth/fake news
| detecting machine would simply require axiomatic/weighted
| input, ie. "I trust MIT with public key 0x..., youtube
| jesus from la with public key 0x... and my childhood mate
| 0x..." - based on that is "X true, false or undefined"?
| (weighted output). Because I trust MIT with weight ie.
| 500% and MIT trusts Caltech, my trust graph will favour
| Caltech view of the world. Yes you can throw blockchain
| and AI into it and it actually makes sense.
| philwelch wrote:
| If Google isn't legally liable for this under defamation
| statutes, maybe they should be.
| mcv wrote:
| The example in the article sounds like a pretty blatant case
| of libel/slander. Though not as downright dangerous as some
| of your examples.
| blueblimp wrote:
| I once saw it source its info from a wrong answer in a
| multiple-choice quiz.
| cntrmmbrpsswrd wrote:
| This is not true. While the content may initially be auto-
| generated, the Google KG is worked on extensively by real
| people. There are regional teams which work to verify and
| source the information that is out there. My sister works on
| the traditional Chinese team (mostly out of Taiwan or Taiwanese
| ABCs). These teams, as far as I know, are WFH contract workers.
| neartheplain wrote:
| Can users tell when info box answers have been auto-generated
| vs. curated? How often is KG content updated or re-verified,
| as in the case of businesses changing their operating hours?
| Are KG verifiers subject matter experts, e.g. medical
| professionals, or unskilled workers?
| a-and wrote:
| What's unfortunate is that Hristo Georgiev is a very common
| Bulgarian name.
|
| This isn't a case where a highly uncommon name can lead to a high
| degree of certainty in association.
| sleepytimetea wrote:
| Its good to get this data point - from my familiarity with
| first names and last names, both Hristo and Georgiev are fairly
| unique and almost unheard of. The combination of both would
| qualify as a VERY unique name in my worldview. But, in
| Bulgaria, eh, very common :-).
| dhosek wrote:
| I have a longstanding project where I rank graduate creative
| writing programs by their alumni's appearances in a selection
| of prize anthologies. This means I spend a lot of time googling
| authors. There are a number of authors whose internet presence
| is shadowed by criminals with the same name. Then there are
| those who are shadowed by more famous people of the same name
| such as the Australian poet Kate Middleton or the New England
| essayist Ravi Shankar. Then there are the authors whose names
| are the same as other writers. So far I haven't had to do an
| IMDB-style (II) after someone's name although it's come close
| with some authors differing only by the presence or absence of
| a middle initial. And one instance I had to try three times to
| find the correct author of one particular name because there
| were two others (not anthologized) who published under
| identical names. I have a short story that turns on the whole
| name confusion thing that was published last year.
| https://sandyriverreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2020...
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I was so happy to find out 15 years ago that I have the same
| name as multiple pro athletes, both about the same age as me,
| too. I very much want to be un-Googleable.
| ghaff wrote:
| It depends on what you do. I like that, if someone searches
| on my name, I'm the only person they come up with.
| mcv wrote:
| I have a pretty common Dutch name. At my current company,
| I'm at least the second person with my first name-last name
| combination. Same at a previous company. When I became
| freelancer and registered with the chamber of commerce, a
| company with my exact name already existed.
|
| I can probably post all sorts of horrific crap on the
| internet without anyone ever being able to trace it back to
| me.
| ghaff wrote:
| The most problematic thing is when you share an unusual name
| with someone notorious who might plausibly be you at first
| glance.
|
| I went to grad school with someone who later lived in NYC. He
| shared a name with someone who basically was the cause of
| George Steinbrenner (NY Yankees owner) getting banned from
| baseball for a few years during the same period. Obviously
| not a popular NYC figure.
|
| This was pre-web etc., but my friend ended up with death
| threats left on his answering machine.
| brewdad wrote:
| I have an uncommon name yet there are at least 4 (I
| discovered a new one today via Google) of us who share the
| same name and are all within 2 years in age. One of the
| other versions of "me" lives in the same state I grew up
| in.
|
| Fortunately, none of us are too notorious, though one
| alternate "me" has pretty poor credit and another has been
| sued a couple of times recently.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm actually not sure why I'm unique, at least in
| Internet times (someone much older turned up in a search
| at one point). Neither my given name nor surname are
| _that_ rare. But they aren 't super-common and are from
| different European nationalities so I guess that's enough
| to collapse into a unique point.
| stordoff wrote:
| I have a relatively uncommon name, yet I've still come
| across two people who could be mistaken for me at first
| glance. One comes from the same county as me, and the other
| went to the same university. The former died 18 months ago
| in a car crash, so the first result for my name is now
| "[name] named as victim in [location] crash" (and there's a
| recommended search for "twitter" that uses my photo), which
| is a little strange to see.
| baron816 wrote:
| This is why the media usually refers to well known criminals by
| their full (first middle last) names.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Which sometimes gives the false impression that criminals
| naturally go by all three names. A lot of TV shows will
| create a fictional serial killer named something like John
| Michael Doe because that sounds more "sinister" than just
| John Doe.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Google is being eaten by its own algorithm at this point, and
| increasingly reminds me of Lycos (if you don't get it, be glad
| you're still young).
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| If you search my first and last name, the first result is of two
| 18 year olds who burned a house down because one kid has my first
| name and the other has my last name. For me it goes:
|
| github burned a house down twitter account I no longer have
| access to
|
| Thanks google...
| williesleg wrote:
| Good luck shit head
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Next time LinkedIn asks why I don't have a profile picture I'm
| going to provide a link to this article. Scenarios like this are
| why I do my best to keep my photo off the internet.
| [deleted]
| stewx wrote:
| Praying that Google turns me into a serial killer so I never have
| to work again. Settlement deal will be epic.
| neil_s wrote:
| I filed a bug. I don't work on the KG team but hopefully it'll
| get redirected to the right people and fixed asap.
| cbsmith wrote:
| All I'm saying is try being named Chris Smith. ;-)
| walrus01 wrote:
| If you want to see a terrible example of Google automatically
| finding a "best" search result for the #1 entry of something,
| google the following:
|
| "how many raccoons can fit"
| bartread wrote:
| For anyone who's curious but not enough to actually run the
| search themselves, the top results (using the string without
| quotes) all relate to how many raccoons can fit into a human
| anus.
|
| No, I am not joking, and this is the result of 20+ years of web
| search development and decades of cutting edge AI research,
| right here.
|
| Honestly, it pisses me off how bad Google's search is these
| days. It has close to zero clue about quality _or_ relevance.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Racoon smuggling seemed a good job opportunity in the
| newspaper, but is obvious that the profit margins are tight.
| yongjik wrote:
| Well, apparently it's a meme. Yes it's objectively terrible,
| but I'll bet 80% of people searching for "how many raccoons
| can fit" are actually looking for those results. (I mean,
| unless you're buying a container to transport your twenty pet
| raccoons, it's just not the kind of phrase most people would
| spontaneously search for.)
|
| Basically, it's as relevant as searching for "the answer to
| life" and getting results spammed with 42.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| >all relate to how many raccoons can fit into a human anus.
|
| Presumptuous of you to assume that's not exactly what I want
| to see when I search for that specific phrase.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Google knows the answers to the questions we were afraid to
| ask.
| krisoft wrote:
| > Honestly, it pisses me off how bad Google's search is these
| days.
|
| Sorry, that is a bit over the top. What result would you
| expect for that query? Folks took a silly premise and made a
| joke about it and google in the absence of anything more
| relevant shows you their joke. While i was typing this query
| in I had to ignore the much more usefull suggestions: "How
| many raccoons in a litter", "How many raccoons in the world",
| "How many raccoons are in the us", "How many raccoons live
| together"
|
| And it provided reasonable looking lead to answer all of
| these question. And it did this while I was seriously
| mistyping the animal's name!
|
| If you don't recognize how amazing this is then you left your
| blinders on. Let's take this query for example: "How many
| raccoons are in the us". This is a well formed human
| question, but it is not how one used to query a search
| engine. You were supposed to try to guess what words would
| appear on your imagined page and type those in. So for
| example you would type in "raccoon population us". Except of
| course you were supposed to also know that the word "us" is
| ambigous, and appears too often in the wrong sense, so you
| would transform it to "United States" to help the machine. So
| by the expectations and conventions of the early google this
| is a badly formed query. A user error realky, yet now it can
| answer it! And it doesn't just gives me a link where there
| might be an answer. Oh, no! It pulls the most important
| sentence out of the page and pasts it over the link.
|
| This. Is. Freaking. Magic.
|
| Are there mistakes? Sure. The linked serial killer thing is
| quite bad for example. But if you pick the raccoon example as
| your main argument then you lost me.
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