Fuzzy search going too far

[chronistin 188]

Recently I've been wondering about search results. I know that in OCR'ed images, the words are interpreted loosely, which is fine. However, I expect the search in text notes to be precise, not "something somehow similar". I attached an example, the second part of the word is not even close to the search term. Is there a way to set the search to precise results?

[eric99 1,083]

49 minutes ago, chronistin said:

Recently I've been wondering about search results. I know that in OCR'ed images, the words are interpreted loosely, which is fine. However, I expect the search in text notes to be precise, not "something somehow similar". I attached an example, the second part of the word is not even close to the search term. Is there a way to set the search to precise results?

I can reproduce your problem if there is no exact hit for the search string "geschmackshochzeit" . If I  add a note containing the exact search string, it won't return the fuzzy result anymore, only the exact note.

So, my guess is that when there is nothing found, EN's search algorithm assumes that there was a typo in the search string and tries to suggest something similar. Personally, I think I can appreciate this in some cases, but sometimes it's absurd due to the dumb algorithm not understanding the semantics (yet).

I don't think you can disable it.

edit: I did some more tests with typos and most of the time it won't return a fuzzy result but I got a  "Did you mean  xyz" message instead, which is actually better of course.

[gazumped 12,071]

If you consider what's already been said by Evernote at various times about 'making search easier to use' I think this is all related. 

Some "AI" may have been added to searches so that even if you're not skilled in the process,  you'll likely get results that include the information you were looking for. 

In one way that's good - there's no need to carefully craft a detailed search;  just type some relevant words and take a stab at it.  In other ways - like if you are looking for a very specific word or phrase - you'll no longer necessarily get precise results.  I did see in another thread somewhere that double quotes helped isolate the terms being looked for.  No idea whether that would work on a single word,  but it might be worth a try? 

[chronistin 188]

Hm, interesting reasearch. I have a note titled with the original search word, so (as it is not a common word used elsewhere), I would have expected only the note titled "Geschmackshochzeit" to be returned. The word is not in the note body as standalone word, so maybe there's a difference in searching in body or in title. Or maybe you do not have any similar words in your notes?

I also found out that I can force a precise search by using quotes. That's something. 

I would much prefer normal search to be precise with a "Did you mean...?" option, but I guess that ship has sailed long ago with google's "intelligent" search that makes you jump through hoops to get search results without (more or less) similar sounding words. 

[chronistin 188]

1 minute ago, gazumped said:

If you consider what's already been said by Evernote at various times about 'making search easier to use' I think this is all related. 

Some "AI" may have been added to searches so that even if you're not skilled in the process,  you'll likely get results that include the information you were looking for. 

In one way that's good - there's no need to carefully craft a detailed search;  just type some relevant words and take a stab at it.  In other ways - like if you are looking for a very specific word or phrase - you'll no longer necessarily get precise results.  I did see in another thread somewhere that double quotes helped isolate the terms being looked for.  No idea whether that would work on a single word,  but it might be worth a try? 

Seems like we posted at the same time. Yes, the quotes work for single words also, which is good. I often wonder why the "making things easier" by software companies more often than not makes things harder for me.  

[gazumped 12,071]

 Sadly,  "making things easier" seems to benefit casual users much more than the more experienced crowd.  IMHO catering for the experts is a better long-term strategy.  We'll be around for a long time - if we're happy with the way things work - where casual users are fine to generate a bit of income this year,  but the numbers will likely fade away as the group becomes more mature and generates a new cadre of 'experts'.

[PinkElephant 8,819]

Fuzzying Search up is the last cry - the big players now try it through AI, that is permanently training itself based on user interactions. This is not only for similar looking words, but for similar sounding and for similar meaning ones as well.

This means that the search results will be different on the same data after some (inherent) training.

The new Apple Chips have as much chip surface dedicated to their AI neural engine as for the classical CPU.

So far about „reliable“ search results … 

[ehrt74 240]

48 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Fuzzying Search up is the last cry 

Good job i speak German  

Flavour of the month, new-fangled capability? something like that in English

[eric99 1,083]

12 minutes ago, ehrt74 said:

Good job i speak German  

Flavour of the month, new-fangled capability? something like that in English

Will this be matched by EN's fuzzy search 😉

 

[PinkElephant 8,819]

Probably the original was invented by the French: „le dernier cri“. But it does come mobile (no, I mean „handy“). 😂

[gazumped 12,071]

Not to hijack the topic here,  but I'm mildly terrified by some new products that seem to take this to a whole other level - there's "Personal AI" and "MyMind"... both using AI to help analyse your note-taking - and (in MHO) your entire life!  These are start-ups and AFAICS subscription based,  but it seems to me this is a way to give an AI a huge Deep Learning course in human behaviour that might be a bit valuable in itself,  no matter how private and confidential the personal details allegedly are...

That might be a bit cynical and paranoid,  and I for one will welcome our cybernetic overlords - but I don't think I'll be using AI based products anytime soon...   

[chronistin 188]

2 hours ago, gazumped said:

Not to hijack the topic here,  but I'm mildly terrified by some new products that seem to take this to a whole other level - there's "Personal AI" and "MyMind"... both using AI to help analyse your note-taking - and (in MHO) your entire life!  These are start-ups and AFAICS subscription based,  but it seems to me this is a way to give an AI a huge Deep Learning course in human behaviour that might be a bit valuable in itself,  no matter how private and confidential the personal details allegedly are...

That might be a bit cynical and paranoid,  and I for one will welcome our cybernetic overlords - but I don't think I'll be using AI based products anytime soon...   

I don't know how much better those apps are than Alexa and Google home, but I think there is still a long way to go before any AI is really useful beyond speech recognition. 🙄 Either that, or my life and routines are too atypcial for them to understand.