New AI search engine & accordion questions

[Johnny]

I came across a recent article singing the praises of the new AI search engine, Perplexity, and thought I’d put it through its paces with some questions:

• What are the best accordions in the world?
• I inherited an old accordion. What’s its value?
• Should I learn CBA or piano accordion?
• What is a good book for CBA beginners?
• What accordions are manufactured in China?
• Where are Petosa accordions produced?
• Why should I learn quint bass system on accordion?
• How heavy is a Victoria Poeta V?

See attached screenshots for results.

The AI engine’s search results feature summaries rather than a list of links like Google. Content from this forum was frequently cited as a main source. The results were both impressive and unnerving (and probably wrong in some cases). One reader commented in the NYT article: “Humans create, AI consumes.”

 

[Jeremyh]

Maybe the clue is in the name, Perplexed -you will be.

 

[Tom]

Ask it who is the best accordionist…..

 

[Johnny]

Ask it who is the best accordionist…..

Sorry, Tom. We didn’t make the list. Yet…

 

[Tom]

Oh yeah, you gotta specify “living”.

 

[Johnny]

Good call. The prompts are important I guess!

I got different results depending how I phrased it:

Who is the best accordionist living in the world? Vs
Who is the best accordionist alive today?

Probably vary even more with accordionist vs accordion player.

Maestros Lawrence Welk and Pietro Frosini are back from the dead according to some of these results..

 

[Tom]

AI, not ready for prime time! But will be used as such anyway…..

 

[dak]

Good call. The prompts are important I guess!

I got different results depending how I phrased it:

Who is the best accordionist living in the world? Vs
Who is the best accordionist alive today?

Probably vary even more with accordionist vs accordion player.

Maestros Lawrence Welk and Pietro Frosini are back from the dead according to some of these results..

The AI seems particularly impressed with Lawrence Welk since it starts and ends its list with him.

 

[dak]

Good call. The prompts are important I guess!

I got different results depending how I phrased it:

Who is the best accordionist living in the world? Vs
Who is the best accordionist alive today?

Probably vary even more with accordionist vs accordion player.

Maestros Lawrence Welk and Pietro Frosini are back from the dead according to some of these results..

Maybe it interpreted the question as who was best while still alive. After all, the accordion may be a favorite instrument of the undead.

 

[JerryPH]

AI... currently a waste of time. Of course decades from now it will have SOME value, but right now, about as usefull as... well, maybe I can ask it THAT question, but IMHO is that it is just short of 100% useless... though it does have some minor comical value.

 

[debra]

AI... currently a waste of time. Of course decades from now it will have SOME value, but right now, about as usefull as... well, maybe I can ask it THAT question, but IMHO is that it is just short of 100% useless... though it does have some minor comical value.

I fully agree. Some of the answers do make sense. But a Victoria Poeta V weighing 41kg... I had to laugh!
AI should really be called AS, for Artificial Stupidity. AI combines all the stupid things people write online and then tries to mix and match the stupidity found online in order to come up with a sensible answer. Good luck with that!

 

[Siegmund]

AI is just a few years away from being ready for prime time now.

Just like it was in the 1970s, when we saw Parry and Eliza and the first 'expert systems'.
Just like it was in the late 90s, when we saw search engines like AskJeeves that claimed to handle natural language queries as well as computer-ese keywords.

It has gotten much better at writing convincing-sounding fiction... but I am sorely disappointed at how little progress has been made at actual fact-finding and analysis.

 

[Dingo40]

It has gotten much better at writing convincing-sounding fiction.

Uncanny how similar the answers sound to those provided in parliamentary question time!

 

[dak]

Uncanny how similar the answers sound to those provided in parliamentary question time!

Political speeches are readily available for training AI and tend to be better proofread than blog posts. Also all text material where the copyright has run out. Current copyright regimes tend to start well before WWII, so there is little surprise if the AIs end up nationalist, sexist, racist and belligerent.

 

[Jeremyh]

Not utterly useless, it can write decent code and tests if you ask it the right question in the right way. Interestingly it gets better if you ask it to think about it's answer.

You also have to remember where it's being fed from, mainly peoples posts on the internet. Garbage In Garbage Out was one on the first computing rules I learnt.

 

[Tom]

….and don’t forget that I’ve been doing progressive posts showing how AI is improving in generating pictures of Tuscan accordion players. I just cheffed this one up. Note that it’s still not good with hands, so best to leave them out (at least with the free version I use).

 

[Johnny]

This particular search engine is still a rough (obviously), but I wouldn't characterize all AI as useless or not ready for primetime. Thinking back to the advent of the World Wide Web, there was plenty of skepticism and debate early on about its usefulness. And here we are chatting...

I'm sure many of us already engage with AI frequently. Seems like there are different types of AI, and some are already part of my everyday activities/environment: banking/credit fraud checks, music & video recommendations (Spotify, YouTube, Netflix), facial recognition to open my phone, spell check/word prediction in my text messages/word docs, GPS maps with traffic and accident alerts, summaries of doctor & ER visits, etc.

I've noticed my office mates using AI as a part of their workday for tasks - drafting emails, summarizing their notes/transcripts/minutes from meetings. Most of my coworkers are younger then me, and I still prefer to write emails etc. myself. But I'm trying to keep an open mind about AI and try different things. To get a bit edgier: self-driving robotaxis (Waymo) are now quite common where I live. I haven't tried one yet but I probably will -- at least once

Getting back on topic, I enjoyed this article from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA about music and AI: https://online.berklee.edu/takenote/ai-music-what-musicians-need-to-know/

The LANDR AI mastering tool looks interesting...

 

[Johnny]

….and don’t forget that I’ve been doing progressive posts showing how AI is improving in generating pictures of Tuscan accordion players. I just cheffed this one up. Note that it’s still not good with hands, so best to leave them out (at least with the free version I use).

I've always wanted an accordion keyboard made of marshmallow and licorice