Episode transcription

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Transcript

Fabrice Neuman (00:00)
Hi everyone and welcome to the Human Pulse Podcast where we talk about living well with technology. I'm Fabrice Neuman a tech consultant for small businesses.

Anne Trager (00:08)
And I'm Anne Trager a human potential and executive performance coach.

Fabrice Neuman (00:12)
We are recording this on June 1st, 2025.

Anne Trager (00:16)
Human pulse is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

Fabrice Neuman (00:20)
So, Anne, I have a problem.

Anne Trager (00:23)
No. ⁓ No.

Fabrice Neuman (00:24)
Yeah, you know, so it's pretty clear that this podcast is all about living well with technology and it's been getting harder lately for me at least. So, you know, so for our main subject today, I'd like to talk about search. I meant internet search, of course, and how the evolution of tools and, you know, how many there are makes it more difficult for me to choose and to get the results and frankly,

Anne Trager (00:34)
Yikes.

Fabrice Neuman (00:53)
it's all having a negative effect overall. But first, I wanted to follow up on the robot vacuum incident. The infamous. Yeah, I think probably our most loyal listeners might remember that on episode two, you told the story about how a robot vacuum we were using at the time basically drove you berserk getting stuck under the bed and such. So since then, we've been testing another robot vacuum. And this one, I just put back in the box. ⁓ All right. Well, long story short, it wasn't really working either. ⁓ The thing is, I don't think it's as much related to this particular model of vacuum as it is related to the concept. ⁓

Anne Trager (01:31)
Yay! ⁓

Fabrice Neuman (01:48)
basic concept of a robot vacuum, which is why I'm not mentioning the brand names because I don't think it would serve any purpose. But let's say, these robots are supposed to make our life easier. And I think they're not basically for our usage. Maybe some others have other ways to use them, but for them to be efficient, you need to move the furniture so that the, ⁓ the robot can go everywhere. So you put the chairs up and you try to basically clear the way for the robot, right? And so it means, I would say, a lot of work to let the robot work. And we're not talking even like about the baseboards that ⁓ robot vacuums, you so they don't take care of. I heard of a couple of models able to do that, but I don't think I'm going to...

Anne Trager (02:26)
So I hear you, I hear you.

Fabrice Neuman (02:46)
try them for that particular matter. So what's happening?

Anne Trager (02:49)
Okay, well, so I'm kind of reminded of that instinct. I mean, I see you putting up all the furniture and I just don't do that. But I see you doing it. And I'm kind of reminded of that instinct that many of us have to clean the house before somebody comes in to clean the house. And I'll admit being guilty of that. And I don't know what drives that. Or washing the dishes before they go in the dishwasher. Now I have never done that. I know, I know that if you rinse the dishes beforehand, maybe the machine will last longer. But hey, my optimization thing is really about my own time and washing the dishes before I put them in the machine is not one of those things that I do. But about the vacuums.

I know that you know that I have a very short fuse when it comes to tech if it isn't easy and it doesn't make my life easier really quickly. I mean I have zero tolerance for having to put effort into making things easier when it comes to tech which is kind of weird. And that reminds me what Dr. Jared Lynn Hogg said on our last episode about living well with technology being when technology disappears. So my theory about people who, not with those vacuum cleaners, my God, I mean just the other day you had given it another try and whatever and it had made all those beeps and noises saying I'm going back to my stand right now and I'm like okay, well you're on your stand, you're quiet and I went to watch a little something and then in the middle at like right…

Fabrice Neuman (04:06)
And boy, doesn't it disappear with the robots.

Anne Trager (04:29)
…the very climax moment of that series, I hear the vacuum goes, do, do, do, do, and then it starts making all this noise and then it starts vacuuming again. For what reason? I have no idea. I mean, it had been like, it was crazy. It was totally crazy. Anyway, my theory about people who enjoy their vacuum cleaners, their robot vacuum cleaners, is that they run them when they are not home, when nobody is around.

Fabrice Neuman (04:42)
Yeah, and I was aware this time,

Well, yeah, but...

Anne Trager (04:59)
Maybe, and then they don't pay attention to any of those notifications saying, I'm stuck, or I'm out of this, or I'm going back to my stand and so forth.

Fabrice Neuman (05:12)
Well, so it was the plan actually. But the thing is what missed was that I launched it when we both were away. And but it went back to its station to recharge ⁓ before finishing the whole sweep, which is why it started again by itself. At some point, it had enough charge to finish the job. But at that time you were there, I was not.

Anne Trager (05:36)
Okay.

Fabrice Neuman (05:40)
I guess that was the last straw.

Anne Trager (05:41)
Hahaha you know also if you look a little too closely at the corners after it has done its thing well I mean my temptation if I look too closely at the corners is to actually go clean those corners so anyway there is another option in this theory and that is that I am just expecting too much from this machine which is possible whatever it is even before you had put it back to the box I personally had returned to my handheld vacuum because it actually took me less time to do what I wanted it to do.

Fabrice Neuman (06:23)
Yeah, yeah. guess it's just a, I'm disappointed. the promise is here, but the realization is not as far as we are concerned. So, and yeah, that's exactly right. So I guess I'll keep trying a few things, but I'm being very weary about robot vacuums for now.

Anne Trager (06:35)
Not yet, at least, with two options. Actually, three, yeah.

Fabrice Neuman (06:50)
Anyway, that was the follow-up I wanted to get to because it seems that ⁓ robot vacuums might be a regular fixture of this podcast. okay, let's... ⁓ Yes.

Anne Trager (07:00)
Hahaha

Wait, wait, before we leave that topic, I was listening to some podcasts and I'll try to find what it is and put it ⁓ in the show notes where a fellow was saying that it's really kind of too bad that we can't yet speak with our machines, our robot vacuums, our refrigerators, our dishwashers, because we would have a different relationship with them.

Fabrice Neuman (07:31)
Hmm.

Anne Trager (07:31)
if we could speak to our machines. I mean, we're very attached to our refrigerators. mean, who goes to the refrigerator in the middle of the night and looks in it and says, I'm a little hungry. What could I eat and that kind of thing? I mean, we actually have a relationship with these tools. What was being said in this podcast was that maybe we're missing out on an entire opportunity to have another kind of relationship with these tools. I'm not quite there yet, but I thought I'd bring it up. It's food for thought.

Fabrice Neuman (07:59)
Well, it's very interesting because we've been talking a lot about voice mode here as well, you know, and I like voice mode and I think this is where the whole industry is trying to go to, you know, to replace as a new interface. You know, we went from keyboards to mouse basically, you know, with graphical user interfaces. ⁓ And it seems that the new one, the new frontier, if you will, is to do everything by voice and we are really not there yet because we see that ⁓ you cannot do everything through voice. think it means that ⁓ we need multimodal interfaces where you can use voice, hand, keyboard, mouse, whatever, ⁓ depending on the needs and depending on the results that you want to reach. But going with this conversation, also think that those robots we're talking about are those, know, basically round machines. ⁓ First of all, they're round machines that try to go into corners. That's kind of weird. also, basically they're not really ⁓ good enough for an environment that... has been made to be ⁓ lived in by humans. And so I think it's ⁓ somewhat of a demonstration that the best robot is the humanoid that can actually adapt more potentially easily when we are all caught up with techniques with which we can make those humanoid robots efficiently. So they can replace us in some of those menial tasks because they can use the same tools.

Anne Trager (09:48)
So humanoid and humanoidal, don't know how you would say that, interactive, that ability to interact like a human being. And this is what I thought was interesting in this commentary the fellow was making that it's not so much the shape factor here. The dishwasher does what it's supposed to do and it's square. The refrigerator does what it does and it's a big rectangle. So what is the opportunity of actually interacting that machine with which we have or those machines with which we have a pretty deep relationship. I the dishwashers once or at least once a day, know the refrigerator several times a day that we're interacting. What would that change? This is taking it to a whole other level and again I agree we're not there yet when you're having a voice interaction with one of these with the tools that do have voice interaction. It's not quite there yet.

Fabrice Neuman (10:29)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Trager (10:45)
I mean, I'm just trying to imagine I'm having this thing going through when that vacuum started up again, the dialogue we would have had. Yeah, exactly. I mean, how interesting would that have been? Anyway, so off topic.

Fabrice Neuman (10:54)
That would have been PG rated.

Well, so not exactly off topic, but ⁓ yeah, there's another main topic we wanted to consider today. ⁓ And the main subject I wanted to talk about is internet search. I've been thinking about this for weeks now and the whole thing basically consolidated after all the search features Google announced during its developer conference, Google I.O. that took place on May 20th, ⁓ 2012.

And basically they, they announced many things, but they really pushed their new AI mode and search, which basically means that they are, they, they will be replacing soon enough and sooner than later, the traditional list of links that you get when you type a request ⁓ by, you know, replacing it by a sentence, paragraphs, you know, like something you can read.

We didn't wait for Google to use chat bots, chat GPT, perplexity. I know you're a big user of perplexity to do like internet search, but they were like basically compared to Google side projects, right? There was internet search by Google and then other quote unquote, sorry for those heavy users like ⁓ toys that you can try and use for internet search.

But if Google does it, then it changed the game, right? Because everybody goes to Google for But the thing is, and this is where it's linked to the living well with technology, to me at least, it makes it more difficult to choose the right tool. Which one is the good one? And I'm losing time and sometimes my mind over like what kind of tool I can use. So,

I was wondering how you manage help.

Anne Trager (12:56)
Okay, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're kind of freaking me out. I mean, you are the only person I know who to remain completely, totally calm around tech all of the time. The complete opposite of me. And, you know, now I hear you like asking me for help. This is my world being turned upside down. Okay, so let's just both of us take a deep breath in, you know, and then extend your exhale just a little bit longer than usual.

Fabrice Neuman (13:14)
Yes? ⁓

Yeah

Anne Trager (13:24)
Let's calm down the nervous system, okay?

Fabrice Neuman (13:26)
Well, I'm talking about time management. This is your area.

Anne Trager (13:30)
Okay, about search. I'm not in the details as much as you are. I don't question the tools. I used Duck Deck Go because you recommended it to me years ago and when I wanted to move away from Google for I don't remember what reasons, maybe something you said. I've just used it ever since.

Why should I question it? It works. If it works, don't fix it. Don't change it. I know that's not your approach because your job is to test out all of these new things. I mean, I even get a little weirded out when I'm in a Microsoft session on Edge or something like that and I do a search and it automatically comes up in Bing. I'm like, what is this thing? And then I'm like, oh yeah, it's Bing, whatever. But other than that, I never actually think about search, I just search. Until recently, actually it was probably about a year ago, I noticed that search quality in general started dropping. I wasn't getting the same quality of responses. So I actually started saying, okay, if it's not working here, I'm going to try here. And I don't know, a little frustration and maybe searching a little bit less, so moving away from it. So I hear what you're saying. There is a kind of frustration that's building up.

And now my trend is to use AI as a search tool, which is probably not the most efficient either for all of the reasons we've talked about previously

Fabrice Neuman (14:56)
Yeah, so, but that raises the question, is AI the right tool for search? I don't think we have the answer yet. And it brought also to me the, you know, it's been since the beginning, Google always said that being able to manage your personal information is one key to get better results. because it can rely on who you are and where you are and what you do to provide more targeted answers. It's always the same thing. Basically, people take for granted that if you ⁓ search, you go onto google.com and you search for a pizza What you want is a place near you.

Anne Trager (15:41)
Hmm.

Fabrice Neuman (15:41)
Right? And so you give your browser access to your location and it will give you a better answer than if you don't give it access to your localization because there's no need for you to, if you're in Paris, to get a PID to join in New York. it's always the same thing. And they really hammered it during Google I.O. saying, We can use, and they called it, personal context. We can if you want, but knowing Google, it's by default, so it's always the reverse. If you don't want it, you have to deactivate it. Use your search history, your YouTube history, the document you have in Google Docs, whatever ⁓ Google can have access to through your Google account. And it does make sense sometimes for the joint example I gave, but sometimes also it doesn't work. I remember this example when I asked ChanCyBT a few months ago who I was, you know, to get a profile or something like that. And I got answers, which were good, and also a paragraph about my love for aviation, which is not a love for me, I'm interested because our daughter flies. Right. And so I ⁓ did some search on, on, on planes and stuff like that. And Chan Chi PT assumed quote unquote, I'm anthropomorphizing obviously, that it was me. It was about me as well. So the personal contextualization is not always pertinent. And so the other question is that do you want any search tool or any tool to actually remember everything that you do with it?

Anne Trager (17:32)
So again, this is a question of I can see helpful that can be and how interesting it is. And then I'm like, well, then how do you get creative? How do you have any sort spontaneous encounter with something you're not expecting, which is what helps us to be creative. If it's just giving me stuff that I'm expecting or that's related to what I've already done in the past, it's the whole thing about how do you get anything new if it only comes from something in the past. The whole problem with AI is it's based on stuff we've already done. The full database is stuff that we've already done. So how does it really create anything? I think that what it does is it provides these juxtapositions that will allow us to create things. But other than that, so that's the first thing is creativity. Sometimes I like to walk down the street and see something I've never seen before. How's Google going to allow me to do that? Always been a question for me. Secondly, I'm thinking of the times when I used to translate thrillers and mysteries and I was doing a lot of internet search about violent crimes and things like that. actually I remember using ⁓ asking you how I could not have that all in my search. I was asking that question about Google already because I didn't them to get you know, to get advertisements to buy guns or anything like that. I mean, just didn't want that, you know. It was kind of weird. But so now the whole thing is what would AI think of me, you know, in that context? Anyway, so there are all of these considerations and because I'm a messy, contradictory human being, I think it's very cool that it will remember things and... I think it's very useful. I use Perplexity and they have spaces where you can upload documents and links and give specific instructions. And this gives me a space, so the word is well chosen, to brainstorm different projects and to work on ideas without mixing it up with everything else. I also ⁓ like Google's Notebook LM where you can create your own little language model with the documents of all sorts that you can bring together and then work from that.

That's really cool. haven't, and I know chat GPT has memory functions, I haven't played with those yet. So all of this is very tempting and exciting as well. And once again, I have strayed from the topic of search. You want to talk about search. So let's just face it, I have come to the realization that search is not quite as sexy a subject as AI, is it?

Fabrice Neuman (20:20)
Hmph.

Well, I see what you're saying, but there's a relation between those two, right? Because search is becoming more more AI. And this is where the... all becomes more fuzzy, the difference between the two.

Anne Trager (20:36)
Yes.

Fabrice Neuman (20:46)
I would like to mention, ⁓ it seems like also Google is actually looking for an answer to that. And they're not very clear on it yet. I would mention another podcast I listened to. The podcast name is AI Inside. And they interviewed Nick Fox. He's the head of search at Google. And right after the announcements of all those AI mode and AI overviews and all the AI stuff that's being embedded into search. And there are lots of good questions in that interview about what it meant and how to make the difference between those tools. And to me, at least, ⁓ the answers were not very clear, which brings me to the whole thing, which is, to me, the main question is simplicity. ⁓ And it seems that search became more and more complex. And so it's not as disappearing as it could be to quote Dr. Jerri Lynn Hogg again. And I don't know where it's going to go, but to me, so it's a transition phase, which is probably why I'm thinking about it so much, aside from my geekiness. So, but you know, so that's the thing, you know, you've been saying that you,

Anne Trager (22:05)
haha

Fabrice Neuman (22:11)
You've been using DuckDuckGo for years because it simply works. I would mention as a side note that ⁓ even the slightest change can be... hard to fathom and you mentioned Bing and you have to know that DuckDuckGo is basically Bing. It's based on Bing. But you going on Bing was disorientating. Right? But you would get basically I think the same result. So.

Anne Trager (22:34)
Yeah, it didn't look the same.

And I never compared them because I don't have time for that. I'm doing other things. Yeah. Yeah.

Fabrice Neuman (22:43)
And why would you, right? But even what I mean by that is that even the slightest change can ⁓ be ⁓ disturbing. so after like more than two decades of a pretty stable way of searching for information on the web, it's all in flux because of AI or thanks to AI, we still don't know, right?

Anne Trager (23:08)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Fabrice Neuman (23:10)
But to stay optimistic because this is who I am, it also feels to me the science fiction of my younger years has become a reality and that I love. Because all those tools you talk to a computer and get an answer same way and have a conversation, mean, is something I dreamed of. I read a lot about.

Anne Trager (23:21)
How exciting.

Fabrice Neuman (23:36)
stories like this and so I love that.

Anne Trager (23:37)
No.

Okay, okay, so let's remain optimistic and we can attack the subject of what this means for websites and content producers at another time. And let's stay on that high level of at some point maybe we'll be interacting and having all kinds of really cool relationships with all of our different machines and presumably they will be different than the relationships we have with human beings.

Fabrice Neuman (23:53)
Yes.

Anne Trager (24:10)
Hopefully they will not be quite as messy or maybe it's that messiness that makes our relationship with human being so wonderful. Anyway, that is it for episode 18. Thank you all for joining us. Please do visit HumanPulsePodcast.com for links and past episodes.

Fabrice Neuman (24:12)
And thank you for subscribing and reviewing wherever you listen to your podcasts. It helps other people find us.

Anne Trager (24:35)
And please do share this podcast with one person around you.

Fabrice Neuman (24:40)
And with that, we'll see you in two weeks.

Anne Trager (24:42)
Bye everyone.