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

DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

pcgamer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 556 posts

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#511

Post by epicide »

somewhatgoated wrote: post #497
lukashoff wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the recent rollouts that really grind my gears was Spotify rolling out LLM explanations of songs. Which is the most useful wasteful piece of sh*t ever. Why would I want to get a theory of what is 174bpm and other random crap. It is insane, and I hate modernity and every single modern product that just shoves random LLM crap at you and pretend they are not AI-enabled.

Spotify is a toxic shit company overall that is a general detriment to all musicians everywhere. If you care about music just a little bit you should stop using it today and directly buy music from the artists you care about.

Honestly, this is true for all streaming, not just Spotify. Stream if you want, but also buy albums from them if they offer it. Merch is even better.

Hell, even if you... acquire the music files unofficially and go buy a t-shirt or poster, the artist is still probably getting way more than they ever would have from you streaming all their albums on a loop.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#512

Post by xigoi »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #510
xigoi wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental technology is still the same, just with more fossil fuel burning. > because that's not going to stop, it will eventually become a problem for you. How? Will it stop being possible to cook without AI?

The fundamental technology is still the same, just with more fossil fuel burning. That's like saying the fundamental technology behind an Egger-Lohner Hybrid and a Prius are the same. Technically true, but if you use that truth as a basis for decisionmaking, you're doomed. A modern AI model wouldn't make such a foolish mistake, so you'd better not make it yourself.

Current AI models still make mistaKes all the time.

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:allu5vs...

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#513

Post by acdha »

pelotron wrote: post #491
codewench wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have to consider a ( I would argue large ) percentage of those evangelists are simply lying for financial gain. They see profit, or at least reduced costs, and quite simply don't give a shit about customer experience or anything like that.

Or this is finally their chance to be the smart guy who was in on the ground floor.

I think there’s a lot of that dream — note how many of them became AI experts after striking out in cryptocurrency — but also a huge undercurrent of desperation. The rich guys who run most of the economy have made it clear that they want mass layoffs and that LLMs are the tool they’ll use to get there, so these guys are hoping that if they get on board early enough they’ll be the people doing it to everyone else rather than the targets. I’m not sure how successful that’ll be but it’s somewhat understandable how people might find themselves thinking that’s the best option available in the current economy.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#515

Post by acdha »

osigurdson wrote: post #28

I actually like AI mode in Google. My main reason is if I just have a quick question it seems a lot quicker than logging into ChatGPT/Claude as I can just type it in the address bar. Of course DDG / others can do the exact same thing as they already have an AI mode. Maybe you can even set up ChatGPT as a search engine - not sure. The key for this use case is speed - it has to be nearly instant.

The problem is that it’s both slow and treacherous. They can work on performance but the convenience is really undercut by it being wrong a significant amount of the time and incomplete even more frequently so I have to review the search results anyway.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#516

Post by pbhjpbhj »

WarmWash wrote: post #180
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"a hard push to improve search for everyday people" Citation needed. A hard push to change their search offering, sure. To improve it? Well, if by improve you mean 'require more interaction and viewing of more adverts on average before leaving' ...

Again, if you have been on HN since 2009, you are likely on the far fringe of Google's user demographics, which at this point is pretty much "The average human being on Earth". I would bet all of my money that you never once did a Google search (pre-LLM mania, but maybe even after) that looked like "What kind of clothing is best for when you are going hiking around the lake, so my feet don't get so cold?" Sadly, this…

Fwiw, I do/did plain language searches for the last couple of years, following Google's lead - I think the more natural language searches have only really been in the last 5 years.

I often use terse searches too, mostly when I forget to write it out longhand to satisfy Google - but either way it's getting less wheat with my vat of chaff in the SERPs and several times recently I've had to re-phrase to get anything useful.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#518

Post by ipaddr »

wsc981 wrote: post #382
ipaddr wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its probably why you keep seeing them a click is marked as interest and clicking away doesnt cost anything they refund it.

No, for a long time I never clicked. But since I keep seeing the freaking ads, I decided to click on them, because from what I understand they have to pay money for each ad click.

They don't if you click away in a second or two. Spending more time will cost them.

But your best strategy is to zoom past those ads quickly no pausing or close the browser when you see them

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#519

Post by fsflover »

qwerpy wrote: post #494
yummybrainz wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I took their free carrots and now several years later, their carrots are a global ~monoculture that have been modified to grow faster but taste much worse. I don't like their carrots anymore but most other carrots are grown by small-scale local farms and can't be bought for cheap because the farmers never managed to get competitive economies of scale." "I wish I'd supported the crazy folks who did carrot science in…

I also see the other side. I wish it wasn’t Google that currently has the best free product, because their well-oiled ad machine is going to inevitably turn the crank to find that sweet spot where the product is barely tolerable due to ads. But if I want free, fast, mostly correct lookups to plain English questions, what’s my alternative? Paying OpenAI or anthropic doesn’t seem to really change much. They’re going to…

By which measure is the Google's free AI better than the one at DuckDuckGo? Happy user of the latter.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#520

Post by shimman »

PaulHoule wrote: post #505
fhd2 wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One fascinating thing about LLMs is the degree of evangelism it inspires in some. You can explain some of that with paid micro influencers, people invested in the success of AI, consultants looking for workshop opportunities and all that, but I know enough people with no skin in the game at all, that turned into very vocal advocates. I think to some degree, that effect is also at play here. CEOs, product managers etc…

One character I find interesting is Ezra Klein from the New York Times who desperately wants to see something positive come out of markets and industry and has an enthusiasm for AI which is not shared by his audience. He struggles to understand that skepticism and I think that's bad for his project. At least he's not one of the many mooks who are doing ChatGPT-assisted (Grok-assisted?) blogging and boasting about it,…

The entire purpose of people like Ezra Klein, Derek Thomas, and the elite journalist + consultant establishment is to simply preserve the neoliberal order and make sure any questions regarding it are confined in a box they defined where the outcomes never address material needs of the people.
Post reply on HN