OK, there's a lot of negative comments here, but this is a great idea at a high level. It really is hard to figure out where to do a thing and it's also very easy to get phished. If they can figure out how to help people get all the services they're eligible for that'll be an amazing improvement for the people.
"at a high level" is doing a lot of work.
I know some companies that at a high level want to "organize the world's information" or "build the future of human connection", yet have done innumerable cruel and harmful things to society (at least in my opinion).
It's can't customise the response to the person asking the question in quite the way putting a massively expensive compute behind each user interaction.
And that is the huge problem here; it's not "search on steroids", it's "Ministry of Truth" on steroids.
Because Americans are notoriously and demonstrably bad at understanding the architecture of their own government, including the layer-cake nature of authority and responsibility delegation.
Type "affordable housing", click "Contact your nearest public housing agency (PHA)"
It is less effort and requires less time than america.gov's:
Type "find affordable housing near me", wait praying for relevant results, recieve irrelevant results due to my rural isp having flaky geoip, told to click on the same link I already got grom usa.gov or one of three other irrelevant links or call this irrelevant phone number.
So my tax dollars are now funding a worse way to get worse results to people who can't use a well formatted site that they won't benefit from because they'll trust it implicitly despite it being demonstrably less reliable.
The usa.gov site is a good start, but it’s not really comprehensive, and I’m not sure it can be.
A few queries that I couldn’t find answers to through that site:
* How can you get a permit for a group event in a national forest?
* How can I become a federal contractor as a small business?
* Where do I go to get an amateur radio license and what are the steps involved?
* What are the requirements for purchasing tribal land?
Basically usa.gov seems to mainly exist for people following the “happy path”—go to school, get a job or run a simple business, get health insurance, buy a house, retire. It’s got a few exceptions for large minority groups. But the issue is that the total number of people deviating from that path is huge, even if they only need to find one thing that’s not on the path. Right now they rely on commercial search to get answers, which often leads them to scam sites or intermediaries who take a cut for filing paperwork.
Gov.uk is basically a pre-LLM america.gov that was done beautifully well. And you're guaranteed to not get hallucinated answers too. Searching and indexing works on it beautifully, as do the many functions you can carry out from the web itself instead of visiting a govt office in person.
canada.ca is the Canadian government's equivalent, as far as a web 1.0-style portal/index into many other sites and resources.
Neither the UK or CA versions have "here's an LLM you can make general inquiries to" though; at least for now that appears to be unique to america.gov. Unclear to me why this required a separate domain with all this branding on it vs just being one of those "let our chatbot help you out!!!" popup widgets on the existing usa.gov.
It's great that you recognize that as your opinion.
I never understood this argument and I think it doesn't make sense. It can be argued that, as such, individuals and animals also cause harm and damage to society (whatever this is) by their interest and convenience-seeking behavior.
Nature may cause innumerable cruel and harmful things to society.
Being born causes cruelty and harm because it imposes suffering on life.
I wish I could understand or make sense of what you are saying there, although this is not even the right place, so never mind.
You missed the point they were trying to make: a company’s mission statement says they want to help humanity at a high level, but it turns out they’re doing more harm to it. We can’t control being born or nature. Humans control the companies in question that are doing the harm. You wrote a nothing burger. Almost like an AI slopping out text for the sake of noise.
One must consider the possibility that the goal is unattainable without the harm.
A terrorist finds it much easier to execute on insidious plans if the world's information on vulnerabilities and weapons are organized at their fingertips, for example.
Being part of and accelerating the ad-driven internet, drinking up water for data centers, not filtering out scam apps and websites from its results and store, intrusive collection of private information, etc etc.
Why is this downvoted? Google is responsible for every literally malicious ad attempting to harm people that they display.
There is a big difference between "these ads have flashing lights and take up half the screen and are annoying" and "this ad is attempting to defraud you".
You can support the incredible things Google have achieved over the last couple of decades ... while also acknowledging the absolute shit shows they've been involved with.
I don't think they're saying that America.gov is necessarily cruel and harmful― I read it as a reminder that holding lofty ideals (as exemplified by Google and Facebook) doesn't necessarily preclude wrongdoing; the risks posed by presenting unedited LLM output as "from America.gov" are worth consideration imo
maherbeg · · focus · HN ↗
Rebuff5007 · · focus · HN ↗
I know some companies that at a high level want to "organize the world's information" or "build the future of human connection", yet have done innumerable cruel and harmful things to society (at least in my opinion).
dbbk · · focus · HN ↗
kijashdkujdfhas · · focus · HN ↗
delfinom · · focus · HN ↗
radicalbyte · · focus · HN ↗
And that is the huge problem here; it's not "search on steroids", it's "Ministry of Truth" on steroids.
jryle70 · · focus · HN ↗
kijashdkujdfhas · · focus · HN ↗
Did you look at usa.gov at all?
jryle70 · · focus · HN ↗
mcmcmc · · focus · HN ↗
shadowgovt · · focus · HN ↗
mcmcmc · · focus · HN ↗
goodmythical · · focus · HN ↗
It is less effort and requires less time than america.gov's:
Type "find affordable housing near me", wait praying for relevant results, recieve irrelevant results due to my rural isp having flaky geoip, told to click on the same link I already got grom usa.gov or one of three other irrelevant links or call this irrelevant phone number.
So my tax dollars are now funding a worse way to get worse results to people who can't use a well formatted site that they won't benefit from because they'll trust it implicitly despite it being demonstrably less reliable.
Brilliant.
iamnothere · · focus · HN ↗
A few queries that I couldn’t find answers to through that site:
* How can you get a permit for a group event in a national forest?
* How can I become a federal contractor as a small business?
* Where do I go to get an amateur radio license and what are the steps involved?
* What are the requirements for purchasing tribal land?
Basically usa.gov seems to mainly exist for people following the “happy path”—go to school, get a job or run a simple business, get health insurance, buy a house, retire. It’s got a few exceptions for large minority groups. But the issue is that the total number of people deviating from that path is huge, even if they only need to find one thing that’s not on the path. Right now they rely on commercial search to get answers, which often leads them to scam sites or intermediaries who take a cut for filing paperwork.
verst · · focus · HN ↗
trentor · · focus · HN ↗
fakedang · · focus · HN ↗
expedition32 · · focus · HN ↗
It's rijksoverheid.nl in my country- good luck to any poor expat trying to pronounce that lol.
mikepurvis · · focus · HN ↗
Neither the UK or CA versions have "here's an LLM you can make general inquiries to" though; at least for now that appears to be unique to america.gov. Unclear to me why this required a separate domain with all this branding on it vs just being one of those "let our chatbot help you out!!!" popup widgets on the existing usa.gov.
misanthropemigh · · focus · HN ↗
I never understood this argument and I think it doesn't make sense. It can be argued that, as such, individuals and animals also cause harm and damage to society (whatever this is) by their interest and convenience-seeking behavior.
Nature may cause innumerable cruel and harmful things to society.
Being born causes cruelty and harm because it imposes suffering on life.
I wish I could understand or make sense of what you are saying there, although this is not even the right place, so never mind.
Steppphennn · · focus · HN ↗
dwattttt · · focus · HN ↗
Sure. It's possible. But is your point that it's happening here? Or just that something wrong could happen?
IAmBroom · · focus · HN ↗
I believe it could be used for good things, bad things, or a bit of both. I passionately believe this!
shadowgovt · · focus · HN ↗
A terrorist finds it much easier to execute on insidious plans if the world's information on vulnerabilities and weapons are organized at their fingertips, for example.
dansquizsoft · · focus · HN ↗
Garshtrot · · focus · HN ↗
shadowgovt · · focus · HN ↗
zachthewf · · focus · HN ↗
fakedang · · focus · HN ↗
wredcoll · · focus · HN ↗
There is a big difference between "these ads have flashing lights and take up half the screen and are annoying" and "this ad is attempting to defraud you".
HackerThemAll · · focus · HN ↗
As long as your law allows it, it's not Google's liability. Just change the law. But you call regulations "communism".
fakedang · · focus · HN ↗
i_love_retros · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/israelopt-googles-ai-collaboration-with-israels-military-sparks-controversy-amid-conflict/#:~:text=In%20January%202025%2C,Ministry%20and%20IDF." rel="nofollow">https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/israelop...
Google turned android into a personal data harvester and advertising machine
LightBug1 · · focus · HN ↗
dansquizsoft · · focus · HN ↗
hammock · · focus · HN ↗
Forgeties79 · · focus · HN ↗
randomburner193 · · focus · HN ↗