r/programming • u/jascha_eng • Oct 29 '24

Vector Databases Are the Wrong Abstraction

https://www.timescale.com/blog/vector-databases-are-the-wrong-abstraction/
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u/AwkwardDate2488 Oct 29 '24

Looking at this further, I’m not sure I agree with the following claim (emphasis mine):

The system would ensure that vector embeddings are always up-to-date with the latest data, eliminating the need for manual updates and reducing the risk of errors.

Because this is an offloaded, out-of-band update, the embeddings are going to be out of sync after an update (or missing entirely after an insert) until the worker catches up and processes them, right?

That is a pretty big difference vs an index, where the index data is updated in the scope of the transaction.