I use DDG multiple times a day, every day. I don't find ChatGPT to be a suitable substitute for helping me locate resources on the web; hallucinated links waste my time trying to get to useful information.
Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
291–300 of 609 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
We’re currently in the golden age of LLMs as search engines. Eventually they’ll subtly push products and recommendations in their output to steer you toward specific things.
You mean like the golden age of speech recognition a couple of years ago when they claimed 80% of computer interfacing will be voice only?
Golden age as in, "this is as good as it gets", rather than "it will be better in the future".
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#293Only for porn
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#294Search is primarily a portal - you know a particular resource exists, you just don't know its exact URL. You hear about this new programming language called "Frob", and you assume it must have a website. So you google "Frob language". You hear that there was a plane crash in DC, and assume (CNN/AP/your_favorite_news_site) has almost certainly written an article about it. You google "DC plane crash." LLMs aren't ever…
IMO an example of a good use case for an LLM, which would be otherwise very hard to search for, is clarifying vague technical concepts. Just yesterday I was trying to remember the name of a vague concept I’d forgotten, with my overall question being: “Is there a technical term in biology for the equilibrium that occurs between plant species producing defensive toxins, and toxin resistance in the insect species that f…
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Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those don't seem different to me. it seems like youve internalized the query syntax of search engines and youre fine with erroneous results.
> it seems like youve internalized the query syntax of search engines If by syntax you mean "words related to what I want to find" then I suppose. > youre fine with erroneous results. Because AI is famously correct all the time. And there are no "erroneous" results in my method, only ones not closely enough related to what I wanted, so that's feedback my search terms should be refined. Any answer I get from AI I’m go…
no by query syntax i mean what people have called google fu.
yeah seems the same to me. type some stuff, read the response, evaluate, loop or break. cool you hate ai and dont want to learn a new pattern. but you say i dont want to think which doesnt make sense. you are thinking just as hard.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#296I still use DDG several times a day (google is awful now). But I have transitioned over to Perplexity for certain searches, since it provides links to the source material it used.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#297ChatGPT manages to be even worse than Google, and let me tell you: that's a low bar
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMO an example of a good use case for an LLM, which would be otherwise very hard to search for, is clarifying vague technical concepts. Just yesterday I was trying to remember the name of a vague concept I’d forgotten, with my overall question being: “Is there a technical term in biology for the equilibrium that occurs between plant species producing defensive toxins, and toxin resistance in the insect species that f…
that sounds like a really great example of..... searching through vector embedding. I don't think the LLM part was technically necessary.
It's all about the UI/UX. Same as in Dropbox/rsync
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#299I go out of my way to avoid any LLM generated thing, ESPECIALLY in search results, whether for coding, product research or news. The world is drowning in misinformation and misdirection, I don't need any additional hallucinations.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#300Why disengage your brain and trust AI when searching?