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[Discussion] What's your thoughts on AI generated search engines compared to other ways to find information? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by Jaluvshuskies to c/[email protected]

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Like most of you, I used reddit as solely my only source for finding information. Looking to hear your guys' thoughts on this topic, and hopefully explain and share some knowledge in a more sophisticated manner than I can describe. (also, I hope this is an appropriate place to post?)

I have ran into this discussion a few times across the fediverse, but I can't for the life of my find those threads and comments lol

I believe that a non-corporate owned platform with user-generated information is most optimal, like wikipedia. I don't know the technicalities, but I feel like AI can't replace answers from human experiences - humans who are enthusiasts and care about helping each other and not making money. This is one of those things where I feel like I know the "best" way to find information, but I don't know the deep answers of why, and what makes the other platforms worse (aside from the obvious ads, bloatware, and corporate greed)

I don't know much about this topic, but I'm curious if you guys have actual real answers! Thread-based services like this and stack overflow (?) vs chatgpt vs bing vs google, etc.

EDIT: Wow, all your responses are fantastic. I'm not very knowledgeable about the subject so I can't really continue everyone's responses with a discussion, but I love and appreciate the insight in this thread! But I'll try to think of some follow up questions :)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

This is probably a bit of a pessimistic take, but it feels like Google and some of the other search engines are already essentially giving you AI results in the form of the top content they display. For many searches, what you'll see are a variety of pages either written with AI or so heavily SEO-optimized that it's clear they're written to maximize ad revenue, not to help people find real answers. I think that sort of thing is inevitable with the monetization issues we have today, so I'm not sure what the answer is. Personally I don't ever use generative AI to give me a trustworthy answer. I think it's better employed for coming up with ideas or spurring creativity. Folks using it for fact checking should probably look elsewhere.

I do agree with you that a forum of answers from real people, something like Reddit became, is probably the ideal. And I think there are some industry-specific sites that achieve this reasonably well, like G2 for software and business reviews.

Edit: As an aside, information literacy is truly one of the great social problems of the day. For example, I can't count the number of times I've seen folks screenshot the blurb from Google that "answers" a question and use it to try to prove their point in an online argument. Yes, that works fine in some instances, but the reliance on that snippet is what's concerning to me.

It can be challenging and time-consuming to find real information, and the state of current search engines only exacerbates the problem.