Author here - it's a fair criticism, and I point it out in the article. However, I kept it in for a few reasons.
I'm trying to show the model's full capabilities for image location generally, not just playing geoguessr specifically. The ability to combine web search with image recognition, iteratively, is powerful.
Also, the web search was only meaningful in the Austria round. It did use it in the Ireland round too, but as you can see by the search terms it used, it already knew the road solely from image recognition.
It beat me in the Colombia round without search at all.
It's worthwhile to do a proper apples and apples comparison - I'll run it again and update the post. But the point was to show how incredibly capable the model is generally, and the lack of search won't change that. Just read the chain of thought, it's incredible!
I'm trying to show the model's full capabilities for image location generally, not just playing geoguessr specifically. The ability to combine web search with image recognition, iteratively, is powerful.
Also, the web search was only meaningful in the Austria round. It did use it in the Ireland round too, but as you can see by the search terms it used, it already knew the road solely from image recognition.
It beat me in the Colombia round without search at all.
It's worthwhile to do a proper apples and apples comparison - I'll run it again and update the post. But the point was to show how incredibly capable the model is generally, and the lack of search won't change that. Just read the chain of thought, it's incredible!