Search engines? I'm still using web rings. ;-)
Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
301–310 of 609 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#302Yes for the sole reason LLMs are very arrogant and I don't want to end up similarly delusional about whatever happens to be that I'm researching.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#303Earlier 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.
Okay, so how does the average person search through vector embedding? I would like to try this out.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#304Yes for holiday planning. At work we are a massive confluence/rovo user so that is my go to with very occasional search engine use.
Our projects heavily use platform tools so I am looking there rather than Googling.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#305I'm the inverse, I still 90% of the time use search engines, mostly Google. LLM-s can't help me with researching Hungarian companies offering screws, furniture, TV-s etc I need for my home renovation. It can't find me the best route to go to a cafe, lookup users, find information on famous people. Google is also faster than me typing a good prompt.
I use LLM-s for what they are good at, generative stuff. I know some task take me a long time and I can shortcut with LLM-s easily.
So here's a ChatGPT example query* which is completely off:
https://chatgpt.com/share/67f5a071-53bc-8013-9c32-25cc2857e5...
* It's intentionally bad be able to compare with Google.
And here's the web result, which is spot on:
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#306I tend to use Google to to research and go through multiple website but do exclusively use AI to solve tech issues. So it really depends on the activity for me.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#307I use Kagi to search, but I usually use it with the a "?" at the end which triggers an LLM response in addition to search results. It gives me the answer I want like 95% of the time, and I don't feel the need to dig into the search results. For me this tends to be way better than just searching or just using ChatGPT.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#308No, I find it unwilling to produce factual information. For example Jeep consistently lands at the bottom of the reliability ratings. Try asking GPT if Jeeps are reliable. The response reads like Jeep advertising.
GPt models have a people-pleasing bias and positivity bias. If you want factual information, you have to modify your prompt. I imagine you would get very different results if you asked "are Jeeps more reliable than Toyotas", or "how do Jeeps compare to the median car in terms of reliability" My impression is that different llms are more or less people pleasing. I found grok is more willing to tell me something is a b…
I wouldn't be surprised if the training was weighted to favor text it learned from more "reliable" or "professional" resources, which in the case of products, would be official sales listings that talk about how great their product is.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#309I use DuckDuckGo, with the occasional reddit !g appended if I'm looking for something experience-based. For me, searches fall into one of three categories, none of which are a good fit for LLMs: 1. A single business, location, object, or concept (I really just want the Google Maps or Wikipedia page, and I'm too lazy to go straight to the site). For these queries, LLMs are either overkill or outdated. 2. Product revie…
I've tried DDG but it doesn't seem much different from the results on Google/Bing (as I understand it they use Bing's search index anyway?)
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#310For local searches and product searches yes. For mostly everything else, no.