Ask HN: Do you still use search engines? • Hacker News Board

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

#441

Post by mips_avatar » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 4:10 AM UTC

wruza wrote: post #329

SoftTalker wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I don't like about LLMs is that they vomit out a page of prose as filler around the key point which could just be a short sentence. At least that has been my experience. I admit I don't use LLMs very much.

It's time to bind "Please be concise in your answer and only mention important details. Use a single paragraph and avoid lists. Keep me in the discussion, I'll ask for details later." to F1.

Yeah but it kind of kneecaps the model. They need tokens to "think". It's better to have them create a long response then distill it down later.

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

#442

Post by dismalaf » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 4:25 AM UTC

Of course. Most of the time I'm searching for a physical place, a companies' website, a product, or news. ChatGPT is terrible and giving any of those answers. It's rare I want to know some sort of random fact. ChatGPT also doesn't give sources like, say, Wikipedia.

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

#443

Post by wodenokoto » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 4:33 AM UTC

Constantly use search. Using chatgpt exclusively is like those kids that only use tiktok

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

#444

Post by sonorous_sub » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 4:36 AM UTC

I use ChatGPT sometimes, but only after I've exhausted google's results for my search and not found the answer I was looking for, or when the query is so obscure that the enhanced problem solving ability of ChatGPT warrants going to it first. I like ChatGPT for solving mundane math problems because I can check its work, and getting the answers I need that way are quicker than doing it myself manually. I still don't trust ChatGPT for anything subjective, because I get spurious results from it anytime the answer to my question is not cut and dry. But what it can do, it does well.

I don't have a circle of friends, so I have no idea what other people are doing, outside of what I read online.

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

#445

Post by IAmGraydon » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 4:40 AM UTC

I've done the exact same thing in the last few months. If it's a search that ends in a question mark, I go to ChatGPT or another AI. Sometimes I even find myself going to Google out of pure autopilot habit, and then catch myself and go to ChatGPT. Old habits...

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

#446

Post by n8cpdx » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 4:41 AM UTC

Kagi all day every day. Except for maps, I use dedicated maps app for places/businesses/etc.

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

#447

Post by bicepjai » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 4:41 AM UTC

I have replaced all my search need with perplexity

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

#448

Post by IAmGraydon » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 4:42 AM UTC

anoldperson wrote: post #288

AFAICT ChatGPT is mostly useless and can't be trusted to answer questions accurately. So no, mostly all search engines. To be honesty I'm surprised anybody uses it for anything other than trivial uses.

It answers questions extremely accurately in my experience. It's improved a lot in just the last few months.

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

#449

Post by grishka » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 4:46 AM UTC

Of course I do and always will. Not once did I consider using an LLM for anything even remotely serious. Generative AI, in any form, is a toy, a novelty. It's fun to play with and make fun of sometimes, but that's about it. And honestly, I'm tired as hell of generative AI being this new hotness that everyone must stick somewhere somehow. In their products, in their workflows, in their lives. I'm so looking forward for this fad to pass.

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

#450

Post by skydhash » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 4:46 AM UTC

theamk wrote: post #426

ethbr1 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search is best viewed as a black box to transform {user intention} into {desired information}. I'm hard pressed to construction an argument where, with widely-accessible LLM/LAM technology, that still looks like: 1. User types in query 2. Search returns hits 3. User selects a hit 4. User looks for information in hit 5. User has information Summarization and deep-indexing are too powerful and remove the necessity of s…

Could never understand that obsession with summmarization. Sure, it may be be useful for long-form articles or for low-quality content farms, but most of the time you are not reading those. And if you are reading technical docs, especially good ones, each word is there for a reason. LLM throw some that information away, but they don't have your context to know if the stuff they throw away is useful or not. The text t…

And if you go to a nicely formatted doc page (laravel) or something with diagrams (postgres), it throws all of these away too.