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DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

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Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#111

Post by gchamonlive »

WolfeReader wrote: post #105
gchamonlive wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should explain why, otherwise you risk becoming part of the problem.

Why in general? Because if you don't read the article, you run a strong risk of reacting to things that the article didn't actually say. See OP for a good example. Why this OP specifically? Because he is strongly reacting to the article's claim that "Ai is not the default" ... which is not stated or implied by the article he's replying to. The article is a useful bulletin that DDG has a "no AI" function, previously a…

It's just that people have different understanding of the world and assuming something is self evident is dangerous. For instance the problem here is the apparent disconnection between the comment and the article, but maybe it's just that the connection isn't evident to you.

Take this response to a comment of mine for instance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48144461. I've read the article and someone thought I didn't because he didn't see the connection I saw and acted all righteously, almost as this threads OP.

So in order to avoid embarrassing yourself online it's always nice to first give people the benefit of the doubt and then avoid being sneaky and clever when communication what you want.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#112

Post by hundchenkatze »

gitowiec wrote: post #109

Does DuckDuckGo support -not_wanted_word syntax? I tried to use it with -shop or -pharmacy and it still gave me unwanted results

It does: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/syntax

But I guess sometimes it doesn't work??

> Please note: we are aware some of our advanced syntax isn't operating 100% correctly on all queries and are actively working on it. It is unfortunately a non-trivial issue given we get our private results from a variety of sources.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#113

Post by jknoepfler »

7952 wrote: post #22
cassianoleal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everywhere. AI is only popular with AI providers and delusional C-suites.

I started to find that the AI bit was the most useful part of Google Search. But the actual search results were terrible and now I use Kagi. I like being able to add a question mark and control what becomes AI and what doesn't. I use normal search like a Ctrl F for the internet and don't want it to be too clever.

I find it takes me more time... sometimes it has the answer, often it has pure bullshit. I need to verify everything that comes out of it myself before repeating at anyway.

If people are just naked copy-pasting that field... which, ugh, of course they are... they are doing themselves and others a disservice.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#114

Post by datakan »

mmastrac wrote: post #68

I've weirdly found that I like the Google AI mode in specific cases, and I find that the hybrid is the worst of the two worlds. There are some cases where I don't know exactly what I'm looking for and I want the AI to curate results. In other cases, I know what I'm looking for and I want to read the OG source. The AI popup is the worst and will hallucinate answers from Reddit comments. I specifically had it ask me a…

[dead]

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#115

Post by rpdillon »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #99
rpdillon wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use http://noai.duckduckgo.com/ , which is mentioned in TFA.

You missed the whole point of my comment. Long time DDG users have had to deal with their dumb AI for a year now Everyone is aware of this new marketing URL now

Been a DDG user for about a decade, ever since I stopped using Google search.

Click the gear on the Search Assist box, and click the bottom option that says "Never". Right beneath it, it says: "Completely disables Search Assist".

It's always been easy to avoid DDG's AI, which was the point of my comment.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#116

Post by munk-a »

jerf wrote: post #7

"Wait, we're getting an influx of new users, and they actively don't want us to run the most expensive part of our search results page?" Where can I find such accommodating customers myself?

You can find such accommodating customers if you listen to customers.

In most companies executives can bypass processes to make projects happen - when done well that allows long term investment to happen when the business case is too complex to reduce to an RoI - when done poorly you end up launching a lot of pet projects that have no market and never will. I feel uniquely positioned to have a good understanding of the maluses and benefits of authoritarian project creation from all three angles and the best solution I've seen is to let it happen but bring down the hammer if things get too absurd.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#117

Post by ViktorRay »

bradley13 wrote: post #65

You have to ask: Why is Google pushing the AI results? You would think that this would impact their ad revenue. Since Google is fundamentally an ad company, this deserves a closer look. My suspicion - for which I have no proof - is this: With search results, Google marks the ads. The marking has gotten ever more subtle over the years, but it's there. If you want to avoid clicking on ads, you can. With AI, Google want…

The answer is simple.

“If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will.” - Steve Jobs

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#118

Post by jaredwiener »

john_strinlai wrote: post #37
jaredwiener wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres a difference between users seeking out AI, and PMs cramming AI into previously existing products.

i obviously agree that those are two different things. but its also obviously not true that "AI is only popular with AI providers and delusional C-suites.

I've noticed a lot of weaselly statistics associated with AI adoption.

Company replaces phone support with AI chatbot, then says "Call center interactions dropped 80%! People must really love our AI bot," even though they were given no other choice.

AI features are popular in the sense that people are using it. I think the popularity lessens when asked if people want these features.

My point being that people who visit chatgpt.com/claude.com/etc by their own free will are not the same as people who now have to use AI summaries on Google because they are just showing up there and making the ten blue links harder to find.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#119

Post by munk-a »

guerrilla wrote: post #35
7952 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started to find that the AI bit was the most useful part of Google Search. But the actual search results were terrible and now I use Kagi. I like being able to add a question mark and control what becomes AI and what doesn't. I use normal search like a Ctrl F for the internet and don't want it to be too clever.

Yeah, gonna be honest. I ridiculed people for it before, but now I use Google's AI a lot. I haven't used Google in over a decade otherwise and I still don't. I use Brave for search but Google's AI is better than anyone else's for what I do. You heard it guys, I was wrong. I admit it.

Google's AI is solid, but a lot of its benefit comes from the fact that it hasn't been enshittified into the ground like their search. The plain incontrovertible benefit is that it has the potential to reduce clicks from the user - instead of sending the UX through clicking into sites and then back to the main search pane the information is immediately available. That click through ends up being expensive for three main reasons 1 - the site is sometimes potato though google "solved" this with amp, 2 - it takes a while to scroll to the site entry passed all the sponsored links (a problem google created for themselves) and 3 - paywalls and "Please subscribe to our newsletter" popups are legion, but while this was always a little bit of a problem, it is a much more pronounced problem due to 1, the insertion of amp that threatens financial ruin on being crawled by google.

So, at the end of the day Google's AI is better than ye olde Google Search, and ye olde Google Search is now very difficult to accomplish because of how much Google has poisoned the well. Kagi is excellent but most normal people can't stomach paying for search when there's a "free" alternative so your options are Google's AI, Google's Search or and alternative search - most normal folks don't realize non-Google search alternatives exist (outside like Bing) so Google's AI ends up capturing a lot of usage.

Re: DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms

#120

Post by rurp »

guerrilla wrote: post #35
7952 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started to find that the AI bit was the most useful part of Google Search. But the actual search results were terrible and now I use Kagi. I like being able to add a question mark and control what becomes AI and what doesn't. I use normal search like a Ctrl F for the internet and don't want it to be too clever.

Yeah, gonna be honest. I ridiculed people for it before, but now I use Google's AI a lot. I haven't used Google in over a decade otherwise and I still don't. I use Brave for search but Google's AI is better than anyone else's for what I do. You heard it guys, I was wrong. I admit it.

Google's search AI caused a panic in my household just several nights ago. We were looking up an issue with our pet and the very first thing my partner saw searching google was an AI answer saying you need to panic, this is an emergency, get your animal to an emergency room asap before they die. That of course kicked her into Oh Shit mode. But aside from that answer none of the actual search results either of us were finding backed up the AI.

We had to decide whether or not to drag our pet to an after hours emergency vet, with all the associated stress and cost, or ignore the AI result and go off everything else we were reading. It's one thing to dismiss AI answers that seem wrong when it's a domain I know well or the stakes are low, but this was not that type of scenario.

In the end we opted to ignore google's AI and fortunately it was absolutely the right call. So, thanks google.

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