The new EN Management Must Think We Are Stupid!

[philrodo 60]

One of the excuses we were given for the unprecedented hike in subscription fees this year was because they are adding new features, like AI search. Are they kidding us or do they think we’re stupid? 
I usually save in Evernote receipts from previous purchases. A few years ago we had bought a computer desk that was a great design for our computer lab, as it could accommodate a number of desktop PCs connected to our local network and which we could easily access using one monitor and keyboard/mouse. I wasn’t able to recall the brand of the desk, so I used EN’s new AI search feature using the search term “computer desk”. The search yielded numerous completely unrelated note hits. And when I looked at the details of the search, EN advised that they had actually ran a Boolean search, that is, (Desktop OR Search). That’s what EN’s new management calls AI search capabilities which were used to justify the mid boggling price increase this year—see attached screen clipping… 🤬🤬🤬

 

[gazumped 12,075]

2 minutes ago, philrodo said:

One of the excuses we were given for the unprecedented hike in subscription fees this year was because they are adding new features, like AI search.

The important words in that sentence being one of and like.  Apart from making the app faster,  slimmer and more efficient,  we now have collaboration features like Real Time Editing (by more than one person) and - oh;  you didn't get any price rises for the 6 years to date,  so there's some catch-up in there too to get the product back to self-sustaining.

AI searches are as good as the prompts you put into them,  and if all you put in there was "computer desk" I'm not surprised you got garbage out.  If you can limit your search by dates, locations, colours or names it will refine things more acceptably;  and the nice thing about AI searches is that it will craft a complicated boolean search out of whatever halting explanation you can provide.

[Boot17 1,539]

The AI can't read our brains yet, so all it had to go off of was "computer desk" -- whereas you gave us much more description in your post. Better wording would have been to perhaps try "what is the brand of computer desk that we bought X years ago for all our computers?" Depends on how good your notes are too I suppose. I'd be curious/interested to see if you can figure out a prompt that would return the information you are seeking.

[mackid1993 1,291]

That's NOT how AI works. If you said "What is the brand of the computer desk I purchased in 2021" then you would have gotten a result. Just saying "computer desk" does nothing. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_engineering

[PinkElephant 8,838]

I always wonder why there are excuses searched  for price increases.

Statement 1: We raise the subscription price from X to Z. No excuses needed.

Statement 2: We add AI supported features to our app, and welcome your feedback. No excuses needed.

There is no need to combine statement 1 with statement 2. Only a company with a continuous flow of income is able to innovate. But there is no need to „excuse“ a raise in cost.

Don‘t want or be able to pay: Leave.

Want or enjoy the features: Join.

No excuses needed.

[mackid1993 1,291]

12 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

I always wonder why there are excuses searched  for price increases.

Statement 1: We raise the subscription price from X to Z. No excuses needed.

Statement 2: We add AI supported features to our app, and welcome your feedback. No excuses needed.

There is no need to combine statement 1 with statement 2. Only a company with a continuous flow of income is able to innovate. But there is no need to „excuse“ a raise in cost.

Don‘t want or be able to pay: Leave.

Want or enjoy the features: Join.

No excuses needed.

Yup, not to mention the fact that prices change over time. Everything gets more expensive as time goes on. It's just how economics work. The problem is people hate change.

[Jon/t 1,667]

Check if the correct note has the words computer desk in them. 

You could try what computer desk did I buy. 

Earlier I asked; what is the letter image size for client-name? It nailed the answer instantly without having to look at a note. 

You need to ask the right questions and your notes need to include the words for the request so the ai understands it. 

[PinkElephant 8,838]

The AI we are talking about here is based on a "Large Language Model", and it doesn't work well on "Few Word Questions".

In this case the search term "Computer Desk" is not even a question, or indicative in any way to direct the AI what the query owner is expecting to get.

Computer desk is often grey or brown.
Computer desk will cost between 150 and 400$.
Computer desk is a place where to put your computer.
Computer desk is a subgroup of office furniture.
There are 12.132 vendors of Computer Desk in the country, 37 of them in a radius of 30km.
Computer desk ...

What did you say you expected from your search ? No information in, no power search, no reasonable answer out.

With AI or without, the problem still sits 60cm in front of the monitor.

[s2sailor 2,456]

There is definitely a learning curve with using ai search.  With standard search I would have also searched on “computer desk.”  Simple words is how I initially tried using ai search, also with poor results.  The success rate was much better when using more descriptive requests.  Just now I asked it when my HVAC system was last checked and it popped out the correct date.  With standard search, I would have searched by the company name which is fairly common and would have pulled up other notes as well.

 I’m not a convert yet, and I’m still bothered by the third party access to my notes, but I do find this interesting and am curious to see how it evolves.

[mackid1993 1,291]

It's using OpenAI's API. I'm not sure if it is GPT-3.5 Turbo or GPT-4. The point is you have to prompt it, a LLM doesn't work like search. It's best to use it in a conversational manner and not like a regular search.

Per Evernote's marketing it can be used to ask a question: "How many tablespoons of sugar do I use in my cookies?" or to do a boolean search "Show me all notes between 2019 and 2021 that contain the phrase computer desk."

[philrodo 60]

4 hours ago, gazumped said:

AI searches are as good as the prompts you put into them,  and if all you put in there was "computer desk" I'm not surprised you got garbage out. 

Frankly, when I put two or more words in an AI search, I expect more than a simple Boolean Search using the OR operator!

is everyone defending the price hikes and coming up with non-stop excuses for EN on some type of a stipend from EN? How do I sign up? … 😱🤓🤣

[mackid1993 1,291]

2 minutes ago, philrodo said:

Frankly, when I put two or more words in an AI search, I expect more than a simple Boolean Search using the OR operator!

is everyone defending the price hikes and coming up with non-stop excuses for EN on some type of a stipend from EN? How do I sign up? … 😱🤓🤣

You don't seem to understand how to prompt an LLM. It's not like a search engine. You are attacking everyone here but in this case your complaint is simply user error. 

[philrodo 60]

4 hours ago, Boot17 said:

Better wording would have been to perhaps try "what is the brand of computer desk that we bought X years ago for all our computers?

True, but returning a match on those search words to a Utility Bill, an article about a judicial election, etc., makes little sense. I’d expect more that a simple Boolean search—we could run Boolean searches years ago, so this isn’t an AI search! 

[philrodo 60]

Just now, mackid1993 said:

You don't seem to understand how to prompt an LLM. It's not like a search engine. You are attacking everyone here but in this case your complaint is simply user error. 

I’ve been using ChatGTP for months now, so I know how to use AI searches. The reason I only entered those two search terms, was because i didn’t recall the brand of the desk or other particulars about this purchase, and I wanted the AI search to weed out unrelated notes, so that I could manually find the note in question. Even the most staunch defenders of EN should admit that when running an AI search while EN runs a simple Boolean search with the OR operator, is the least effective way to narrow down the search results… 🤯

[mackid1993 1,291]

1 minute ago, philrodo said:

simple Boolean search with the OR operator

That is how it is intended to work when just provided with two words. You are complaining because you used it incorrectly and it is working as it was designed to.

2 minutes ago, philrodo said:

ChatGTP for months now, so I know how to use AI searches.

ChatGPT is a Large Language Model it does more than searches and in fact is probably the worst thing you could use for searches since it is known to hallucinate. It's much better for creative tasks, mathematics, programming. In the context of AI search it's used to parse information and summarize a result. If you prompt it with two words it can't do what it does. Instead of attacking people on here who are trying to help you could listen to what we are saying and maybe it will improve your experience.

[philrodo 60]

3 hours ago, Jon/t said:

You need to ask the right questions and your notes need to include the words for the request so the ai understands it. 

Yes, if I could recall the particulars of the purchase from years ago, I could have refined the search. But I did not. And EN running a Booleans search with the OR operator, is the least efficient way to run a search—so much for AI. I should have instead run a Boolean search with the AND operator (Computer AND Desk), and that would have narrowed down the results so that I could review them manually. Getting completely unrelated search results, like matches to utility bills, articles on judicial elections, etc., is beyond silly…

[philrodo 60]

6 minutes ago, mackid1993 said:

That is how it is intended to work when just provided with two words

At a minimum, the two words should have generated a Boolean search using the AND operator, (Computer AND Desk). Defaulting to the OR operator is SI—Stupid Intelligence. 

9 minutes ago, mackid1993 said:

Instead of attacking people on here who are trying to help you could listen to what we are saying and maybe it will improve your experience.

it’s getting very tiresome when people on this Forum are only interested in defending EN and no matter what, take a superior attitude that EN can do no wrong… 🤬

[philrodo 60]

2 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

With AI or without, the problem still sits 60cm in front of the monitor.

You have a very condescending attitude! … 🤬 

[mackid1993 1,291]

1 minute ago, philrodo said:

At a minimum, the two words should have generated a Boolean search using the AND operator, (Computer AND Desk). Defaulting to the OR operator is SI—Stupid Intelligence. 

it’s getting very tiresome when people on this Forum are only interested in defending EN and no matter what, take a superior attitude that EN can do no wrong… 🤬

It's getting extremely tiresome when people on this forum just come on here to complain about ridiculous things and drown out the people who just want to discuss the product and the most effective ways to use it to make their lives easier. I'm sick of the people coming on here and complaining about the same things over and over. We get it, there was a price increase and you don't like it. No need to make 3 threads a day about it. Everyone on here tried to explain to you the mistake you made but instead of trying any suggestions you resort to attacking others. That isn't right.

[PinkElephant 8,838]

@philrodo The problem still sits 60cm in front of the monitor. This has been the case since the invention of the computer, and putting more intelligence INSIDE of the box won’t solve this specific problem.

This whole thread is just a case study why this is true.

BTW the „classical“ EN search without AI and all that fancy stuff IS a logical AND. The term Computer Desk is they same as Computer AND Desk. If one wants to use a logical OR, the term would be any: computer desk . 

If someone doesn’t want to learn the advanced search syntax, he can buy himself the ignorance by subscribing to Professional. Then full boolean search is added, which allows more complex searches as well.

[mackid1993 1,291]

2 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

The problem still sits 60cm in front of the monitor.

It's what we in the IT field refer to as PEBKAC. Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

[VincentC 350]

I'm going to violate my personal rule about not feeding the trolls ("troll" partially defined as someone using the word "stupid" to refer to something or someone...).  I would like to make just one small point....  I believe AI search is still identified by Evernote as being in beta.  We users are learning how to use the AI feature to best effect, and Evernote is learning how to improve the feature itself.  Meanwhile, if a user doesn't have patience for working with a feature in beta, I suggest the user not use it.  Traditional Evernote search is still there, working fine, and could be used to find the note the OP was looking for.

 

Vinnie

[gazumped 12,075]

It would be nice to get back to just seeing technical questions like "how do I...?" with answers and suggestions rather than ranting and name calling. 

I often feel like we're in a scene from Mars Attacks - why can’t we just all be friends?