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I understand how this happened but I cannot help but notice that is literally the opposite of what I asked for (files.mastodon.social)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Image description: Google search for "extant languages"

Including results for [extinct languages]
Search only for [extant languages]

(Originally published on mastodon.social: 2024-02-17)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Again its inference would be shaped by the search results that exist, not necessarily just the query. I'm saying there's not a result Google searchers generally agree upon for a search term "live languages" because algorithmically it is not meaningfully separate from just "languages". Whereas I imagine there would be for "love languages" because of the romance languages, e.g. Spanish French Italian

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

@gila nevertheless, I searched for real words and it showed me neither what I asked for or something similar but just some random words that are spelled similar. They could have been at least a little more useful if they'd simply done nothing

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I get that, I don't think that's related to some failure of Google though. The problem originates with the different meaning of "extinct" in relation to language, and consequently the meaning of its opposite. I think what you're looking for is "living languages", and you'd need a full-on LLM search assistant to be able to make a connection between "extant" and "living" languages because generally those aren't synonyms.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@gila or they could have searched for "extant languages" when I searched for extant languages and searched for "live languages" when I searched for live languages

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

If it did, then you’d still not get any relevant results, because again, those aren’t things. A list of extant languages would simply be a list of all languages throughout history that aren’t delineated as some kind of proto-language developed by early humans. Such specificity is not at all conveyed by the term “extant languages”. The search engine can’t reply, “under what circumstances are they extant? Are Klingon, C++, Heiroglyphs desired results? They’re extant!”

I would agree insofar as “live languages” should autocorrect to “living languages”, but it is getting pretty into the weeds linguistically