Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 609 posts

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?

#331

Post by keithnz »

tiborsaas wrote: post #305

I'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…

this is what I put in chat gpt..... ie, exactly what you put in google.

https://imgur.com/a/boNS2YZ

https://chatgpt.com/share/67f5a9f9-f0a8-800d-9101-aafb88e455...

which I think is way better than google.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?

#332

Post by yellowapple »

krferriter wrote: post #124
FloorEgg wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except when search engines bury the thing you're obviously looking for under an entire page of sponsored ads, then that convenience argument starts to not hold up as well...

When I search 'dc plane crash' in Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo I don't get results buried under ads. When I search 'air conditioner for sale' I do get ads at the top of each of those, but that's more okay because I am looking for things to buy. And it's easy to look past the ads to get to sites like home depot or other traditional retailers that come up not just because they purchased ad space.

It helps that decent ad-blockers also tend to be able to block sponsored results.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?

#333

Post by ddawson »

For years I was screaming at Google because I just wanted answers rather than endless blue links for me to research my answer. LLMs were such an amazing innovation in that it provides answers instead but now I'm finding my way back to keyword search. I think I'm still searching about 15% of the time.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?

#334

Post by yellowapple »

LLMs are still notorious for hallucination; last I checked ChatGPT in particular still hallucinates about 1/3rd of the time.

So yeah, I do still use search engines, specifically Kagi and (as a fallback) DuckDuckGo. From either of them I might tack on a !g if I'm dissatisfied with the results, but it's pretty rare for Google's results to be any better.

When I do use an LLM, it's specifically for churning through some unstructured text for specific answers about it, with the understanding that I'll want to verify those answers myself. An LLM's great for taking queries like "What parts of this document talk about $FOO?" and spitting out a list of excerpts that discuss $FOO that I can then go back and spot-check myself for accuracy.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?

#335

Post by keithnz »

JohnFen wrote: post #38
bromuro wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ChatGPT “searches the web” and provides URL of the sources as well.

True, but that doesn't mitigate the problem I have with using LLMs as a search engine replacement. The issue I have is that LLMs "predigest" things and present you with the sources that are relevant to its response. However, it still blinds you to the larger picture. Providing supporting sources is all well and good, but doesn't help you with the larger view. I want the larger view.

I find the exact opposite, LLMs are much better in giving larger views, google will just spit out whatever it matches with no concept of a larger view and no way to ask google to broaden it's search around a concept.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?

#336

Post by keithnz »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #32

Yes, because Google also has AI and it’s integrated into my browser bar, Chat-Gpt is just secondary tool to me. If I need something more complex like programming, talk therapy, or finding new music then I’ll hop on over to Chat.

chat gpt search plugs in as a search engine and you can use it from your browser bar.... it also supports bangs like DDG, so you can do !g and it will go to google, but I never find myself wanting google these days

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?

#337

Post by laweijfmvo »

I just very recently tried using ChatGPT for a situation where’d I’d typically search, draw some conclusions, search again, etc. Basically, planning an open ended vacation.

The biggest issue is when GPT returns something that doesn’t match your knowledge, experience, or intuition and you ask the “are you sure?” question, it seems to inevitably come back with “you’re right!”. But then why/how did it get it wrong the first time? Which one is actually true? So I go back to search (Kagi).

So for me, LLMs are about helping to process and collate large bodies information, but not final answers on their own.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?

#340

Post by keithnz »

bananapub wrote: post #126

if you're using chatgpt, how are you ever actually sure if what you're being told is something a human actually said? are you really cross-checking everything, even things that aren't immediately falsifiable?

chatGPT search puts links through out its results and has a sources button that shows all the sources it used. Just a headsup as I think a few people are getting this wrong, this isn't chatgpt but chatgpt search, chatGPT search is trying to find source information and then summarizes it, you can then go to those source. It's up to date with all current events etc.
Post reply on HN