Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Pluvious

(5,257 posts)
15. The way these fancy search engines work...
Sun Jan 11, 2026, 04:55 PM
Sunday

... when parsing out a natural language query, is to break the sentence down into "tokens" then search its data base for matching patterns to the tokens.

So the phrase: "...a 15 year old hip replacement" gets transformed to the two tokens:
"A 15 year old" and "hip replacement"

It is programmed to re-state the question it's responding to in the format it had been internally tokenized, which hopefully will make clear to the user the specific and unambiguous question it's is answering.

When you compose a query to ask a search engine, it's helpful to do it in such a way that there is no possible ambiguity when it performs the parsing-out of the token phrases.

So something like: "Is it possible that a person will experience back pain caused by a hip replacement operation which had been performed 15 years prior?"

I hope this helps

Recommendations

0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

I find Google AI arrogant, inaccurate, argumentative bucolic_frolic Sunday #1
I agree completely with your comments at the end of the post RockCreek Sunday #2
A I is GIGO creon Sunday #3
Some. nt Javaman Sunday #4
It's weird how big corps think that slapping the word "AI" on everything means people won't notice their product is shit EarlG Sunday #5
I was amused to see the ".ai" internet suffix belonging to Anguilla as "valuable" since AI companies want it muriel_volestrangler Sunday #6
I agree that a lot of machine learning can be extremely useful. But I wouldn't include generative AI in highplainsdem Sunday #7
It's like when you see a bottled water labeled "Gluten Free!" ToxMarz Sunday #9
AND "Caffeine free" BumRushDaShow Sunday #12
Way back before Google BumRushDaShow Sunday #11
Where AI is perfectly suited is the modern day PT Barnum's ToxMarz Sunday #8
Don't get medical information from any internet search. I've seen more batshit crazy shite than minutes I have Raftergirl Sunday #10
Unfortunately, with access to doctors now being killed off due to a lack of health insurance thanks to the GOP BumRushDaShow Sunday #14
I've been having some back pain so I googled a question about whether a 15 year old hip replacement Vinca Sunday #13
The way these fancy search engines work... Pluvious Sunday #15
Just for grins, I submitted the reworded question to Gemini... Pluvious Sunday #16
Thanks for taking the time to do that. Vinca Sunday #17
My pleasure Vinca... Pluvious Sunday #18
just say an OLD hip replacement Skittles Sunday #19
Latest Discussions»Latest Breaking News»'Dangerous and alarming':...»Reply #15