[SIGCIS-Members] Perplexity

[Adam Hyland]

Thanks for your return to this topic. The perplexity thread you shared is
private and unfortunately the pdf generated obscures the answer with a UI
element. I’ve asked the same question to Perplexity using their “research”
mode which more profligately uses computing resources to give a more
detailed answer. The result is here (
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/did-percy-ludgate-s-work-have-oxneW37nS9.bAiYvfV3QVw)
and should be available to anyone with the URL.

I’m familiar with perplexity because the University of Washington pays for
“pro” access which makes it both partially difficult and morally dubious to
proscribe its use in the classroom.

One broad point is probably obvious to everyone but bears repeating: there
is much more difference in capability between any of these agents today
versus a year ago than there is among the agents themselves. They all show
a dramatic increase in capability to “understand” queries and generate
cogent responses. If someone on this thread last posed one of their exam
questions to ChatGPT last year they ought to try again today, and again in
another month.

-Adam

Adam Hyland (*he/him)*
adampunk.com
UW HCDE PhD Student


On Tue, May 6, 2025 at 8:57 AM Brian Randell via Members <
members at lists.sigcis.org> wrote:

> Hi:
>
>
>
> A while ago I and colleagues published a short critique in the Annals of
> the History of Computing of ChatGPT, based on its performance on some
> questions about Percy Ludgate.
>
>
>
> I’ve recently been trying (the free version of) Perplexity, the AI search
> (or more exactly question-answering) system.
>
>
>
> Perplexity itself claims:
>
>
>
> Here's what makes Perplexity different
>
>
>
> Answers that are accurate and always cited
>
> We continuously search the internet and identify the best sources, from
> academic research
>
> to Reddit threads, to provide the perfect answer to any question.
>
>
>
> Citations in every response
>
> Every answer uses cited sources to provide a more accurate and
> comprehensive answer.
>
> If you want to dig deeper, just click the link to the source.
>
>
>
> See its brilliant answer to the question “Did Percy Ludgate's work have
> any impact?”:
>
>
>
>
> https://www.perplexity.ai/search/did-percy-ludgate-s-work-have-2esemV.BRuCo0Q7O_4AxfA
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.perplexity.ai/search/did-percy-ludgate-s-work-have-2esemV.BRuCo0Q7O_4AxfA__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!gyxp0x4-UgdlqkBkNCRifXnXGAv6Y1rWzqMDvgDAx9lcE0e3xttiUQD_Zgg0jayzgaPV_LCgiwp1l7QbFBQe$>
>
>
>
> The web version limits the number of questions per day – so far the iPhone
> App hasn’t.
>
>
>
> I assume I’m not alone here in trying Perplexity, but I don’t recall any
> previous comment about it in SIGCIS.
>
>
>
> However, the Wikipedia article about it
>
>   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplexity_AI
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplexity_AI__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!gyxp0x4-UgdlqkBkNCRifXnXGAv6Y1rWzqMDvgDAx9lcE0e3xttiUQD_Zgg0jayzgaPV_LCgiwp1l_ByERqJ$>
>
> is a little sobering, regarding its alleged copyright violations, and
> failure to respect the robots.txt web-crawling standards.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> Brian
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