Friday, January 11, 2013

Google you still don't get this

Nothing to do with procedural generation, but maybe a bit about artificial intelligence.

Almost two years ago I was complaining about Google's lack of intelligence in matching ads to content. A bit later I was doing posts about tree and forest generation and Google kept serving ads about gardening and genealogical trees.

You would expect two years would have made a difference, then a week ago I started posting about T.I.L.E.S. These are the ads I get now:


Just makes no sense to me. With all the tracking and understanding they do, just a few words are enough to get them off the scent.

I'm glad they got Ray Kurzweil and all, but I begin to wonder whether the Singularity will be just sub-par intelligence at a massive scale. We are bracing for this:



When what we may be getting is this:



21 comments:

  1. I use adblock, so I haven't seen an ad in almost 2 years! :D

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    1. You should have a 'donate' button :) I'm sure many people would be more than happy to donate some funds!

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    2. Same. I hate ads.
      My hosts file too.

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  2. I just got an add saying "Date Older Women" O.o I dont even like older women!

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  3. fascinating blog! How come I've only just stumbled across your work? Procedural terrain generation has always fascinated me from an artistic point of view - I used to tinker with a package called vista (not the dubious MS OS tho..) so to see your terrain generation rendered realtime on your youtube vids was a bit of an eye opener.... What interests me particularly is what makes certain landscapes beautiful and interesting, and inviting to explore, whereas other landscapes generated by the same algorithms can look dull and boring. I live about an hour from the UK national park, the Lake District (eg http://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/__data/assets/image/0020/171641/hd_d100-20-6618-grasmere-fr.jpg) I like to explore the way things of human creation interact with the natural surroundings (roads, housing etc). Right, I'm off to devour your blog backlog, I've got a bit to catch up on - seems I need to find out all about voxels...!

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    1. @JohnG, You are in for a treat, there's a lot of great info when you read Miguel's blog from start to finish... You are going to love the sections on city/state building I can tell!

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    2. I would love him to do more on that =3.

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    3. @Jonathan, indeed - so far I've digested octrees, voxels, dual contouring, mapping voxels into traditional triangles for rendering... brain is hurting a bit, but loving every minute - this guy is a genius...!

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  4. I feel like it may be more about them not having any relevant adds then not knowing what the blog is about...

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    1. I though so too... But I don't think that is the case.

      People who read this blog care mostly about Games and/or game development. Also 3D modeling and rendering. These are huge categories, fully stocked with high paying ads.

      If I go to a different page of the blog, for instance a post that speaks about games, I will get adds for these categories: I see PC gaming rigs, other games, texture packs, etc. When these are the dominant posts, the number of clicks is much higher.

      When ads are about growing your church congregation, finding your lost ancestors or construction materials, I see no clicks at all.

      Serving ads is about understanding the mindset of the reader. They are far from that. It seems to be mostly matching words for now.

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    2. Is there a way you can give it a custom word list to look at? You could throw tags in there like '3d, game, modeling, rendering, procedural generation, programming, minecraft', then you should always get relevant(ish) ads.

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    3. Maybe, but that defeats the purpose of AI.

      The post in question has the following labels: "Corner Tiles, Genetic Algorithm, Herringbone Tiles, Wang Tiles"

      That should be enough for them to get this is about computer science, we are not tiling kitchen floors here.

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  5. Miguel, I have a question off topic.
    I want to make sure that the results of your "hobby" will play (simulation or sandbox ...). And also I need to specify the date of release of the product (the first or second half of 2013?)

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    1. I honestly do not have answers to these questions.

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  6. *result of your "hobby" will GAME

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  7. It drives me mad when Google does that - you go on Twitter or Facebook and BAM you want to work from home for '£1000 a week' - yeah, okay. I definitely agree with what you said in your post!

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    1. There's your proof to a bit of AI though; I live in Lebanon, mid-east here we've got: work from home for '$400 a week', apparently it's tied to the GPD :P Aww! we're way behind! :(

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    2. The lebanese guy: I forgot to tell I love your blog's content miguel. Thank you.

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    3. Hehe... that work-from-home thing is a scam no matter where you live.

      What else is a scam? The GDP!

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  8. I get this kind of thing from humans. I get tile manufacturers emailing me because I have a section of my game programming page about drawing tile graphics. So Google's AI is matching actual human behavior. I'd call that a success!

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