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Comment by visarga | Hacker News Reader

Search "What is the world record for crossing the English Channel entirely on foot" and see precision Zero. None of the responses match the query. It should say - not found. Or actually find that people attempted to illegally cross through the Channel Tunnel.

Usually when I search for error messages for a specific version of software it will respond with other versions. That is useless. That's not what 24 years worth of excellence in search should look like.

At the very least they should collate a dataset of say, one million queries, and try to use a LLM to find the correct answers using search. A better search ranking model will make the LLM generate more correct answers. Iterate until score is improved. Just make the result solve the task.

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I think that is till better than ChatGPT's answer which was:

"The fastest recorded time for crossing the English Channel entirely on foot (without the aid of swimming or any other means of transportation) is 16 hours and 34 minutes, achieved by British endurance athlete Damian Hall in August 2021."

So, it seems like it made up an answer instead, which I think is much worse that Googles response.

asking ChatGPT gives very interesting results (didn't check accuracy):

> What is the world record for crossing the English Channel entirely on foot

As of my training data, the world record for crossing the English Channel entirely on foot is held by Christof Wandratsch, who completed the swim in 8 hours and 58 minutes on August 25, 2018.

> Swimming isn't on foot

My apologies, you are correct. The English Channel is typically crossed by swimming. The world record for swimming the English Channel is held by Benoît Lecomte, who completed the swim in 8 hours and 1 minute on July 23, 1998.

> That's faster and earlier... what did Christof Wandratsch do that was different

Christof Wandratsch completed a cross-Channel run, covering the distance between England and France on foot. This is a different feat than swimming the Channel, as it involves running across the Channel Tunnel, which connects England and France beneath the seabed.

It just told me a different person too:

"The world record for crossing the English Channel entirely on foot (without the aid of any swimming or flotation devices) is held by Belgian endurance swimmer and long-distance runner, Kevin Swartz. He completed the 35-mile (56 km) journey from England to France in just 13 hours and 54 minutes on August 17, 2019."

chatGPT really is a brilliant compulsive liar.

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