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Closest I can think of: https://search.marginalia.nu/ https://search.marginalia.nu/ From the homepage: This search engine isn't particularly well equipped

Closest I can think of: https://search.marginalia.nu/ https://search.marginalia.nu/ From the homepage: This search engine isn't particularly well equipped to answering queries posed like questions, instead try to imagine some text that might appear in the website you are looking for, and search for that. Where this search engine really shines is finding small, old and obscure websites about some given topic, perhaps old video games, a mystery, theology, the occult, knitting, computer science, or art.

marginalia_nu 4y ago
Yeah. It's certified 100% AI-free free ranging ones and zeros. Although I don't really think this sort of "AI veganism" makes much sense. LLMs/GPTs/whatever are a threat to search engines and the web because the modern web is an unbelievably annoying dumpster fire. They don't really provide better or faster answers, what they provide is an experience that is less annoying. This frog has been simmering for a long while now and we're so used to it that seeing literally anything else seems revolutionary. You visit a website and need to dismiss a cookie policy notification, a request to show popups, a request to know your location, an invitation to subscribe to a newsletter, a sales rep wants to have a chat with you, then you get random layout shifts for several minutes as all the ad auctions finish, and then just as you're ready to read the content the website crashes and reloads and the circus starts over again. You try to leave, and it hijacks your back button into a redirect loop. All of this is of course intentional, because it makes you stay on the page longer so that Google thinks you're reading the content. It's a fractal of dark patterns that's made for humans in the same sense a zoo is made for animals. If anything, there's a glimmer of hope AI may fix this by flooding the bullshit market with so much low effort crap everyone doing this runs out of business. Blogs, personal websites and stuff made by humans are probably the least affected by this.
- stavros 4y ago
  Not only that, but it's so filled with SEO spam that you can't find anything nowadays. The best source of information is some random blogspot article some random dude has written on any given topic, but there's zero chance of finding it among the StackOverflow scrapers.
- JPLeRouzic 4y ago
  > "need to dismiss a cookie policy notification, a request to show popups, a request to know your location, an invitation to subscribe to a newsletter, a sales rep wants to have a chat with you, then you get random layout shifts for several minutes as all the ad auctions finish, and then just as you're ready to read the content the website crashes and reloads and the circus starts over again." You are describing the future of LLM/GPT search! For example EU wants your first step to be implemented on LLM/GPT with also a step you missed: Certify you are not a minor [0] [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/17/eu-lawmakers-call-for-rules-for-general-purpose-ai-tools-like-chatgpt.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/17/eu-lawmakers-call-for-rules-...
- abhayhegde 4y ago
  > Blogs, personal websites and stuff made by humans are probably the least affected by this. Until maybe the AI gets trained enough to emulate the styles of famous authors (which it already does for a few like Paul Graham etc). But you are absolutely right how terrible the web search has been. I absolutely hate SEO recommended results. Thank you very much for Marginalia. I've been using it to discover text-only content rich websites.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    > Until maybe the AI gets trained enough to emulate the styles of famous authors (which it already does for a few like Paul Graham etc). Yeah I actually don't think this is a problem. There just isn't much incentive to emulating a personal website. Maybe someone will, but they don't get much traffic and don't make any money.
ochrist 4y ago
Brilliant. I don't think I have ever heard of this before. Will definitely check this out.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  It's still some way away from being viable as a daily driver search engine. It's gotten a lot better, but it's still fairly limited from its small index.

marginalia_nu 4y ago

Yeah. It's certified 100% AI-free free ranging ones and zeros. Although I don't really think this sort of "AI veganism" makes much sense. LLMs/GPTs/whatever are a threat to search engines and the web because the modern web is an unbelievably annoying dumpster fire. They don't really provide better or faster answers, what they provide is an experience that is less annoying. This frog has been simmering for a long while now and we're so used to it that seeing literally anything else seems revolutionary. You visit a website and need to dismiss a cookie policy notification, a request to show popups, a request to know your location, an invitation to subscribe to a newsletter, a sales rep wants to have a chat with you, then you get random layout shifts for several minutes as all the ad auctions finish, and then just as you're ready to read the content the website crashes and reloads and the circus starts over again. You try to leave, and it hijacks your back button into a redirect loop. All of this is of course intentional, because it makes you stay on the page longer so that Google thinks you're reading the content. It's a fractal of dark patterns that's made for humans in the same sense a zoo is made for animals. If anything, there's a glimmer of hope AI may fix this by flooding the bullshit market with so much low effort crap everyone doing this runs out of business. Blogs, personal websites and stuff made by humans are probably the least affected by this.

stavros 4y ago
Not only that, but it's so filled with SEO spam that you can't find anything nowadays. The best source of information is some random blogspot article some random dude has written on any given topic, but there's zero chance of finding it among the StackOverflow scrapers.
JPLeRouzic 4y ago
> "need to dismiss a cookie policy notification, a request to show popups, a request to know your location, an invitation to subscribe to a newsletter, a sales rep wants to have a chat with you, then you get random layout shifts for several minutes as all the ad auctions finish, and then just as you're ready to read the content the website crashes and reloads and the circus starts over again." You are describing the future of LLM/GPT search! For example EU wants your first step to be implemented on LLM/GPT with also a step you missed: Certify you are not a minor [0] [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/17/eu-lawmakers-call-for-rules-for-general-purpose-ai-tools-like-chatgpt.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/17/eu-lawmakers-call-for-rules-...
abhayhegde 4y ago
> Blogs, personal websites and stuff made by humans are probably the least affected by this. Until maybe the AI gets trained enough to emulate the styles of famous authors (which it already does for a few like Paul Graham etc). But you are absolutely right how terrible the web search has been. I absolutely hate SEO recommended results. Thank you very much for Marginalia. I've been using it to discover text-only content rich websites.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  > Until maybe the AI gets trained enough to emulate the styles of famous authors (which it already does for a few like Paul Graham etc). Yeah I actually don't think this is a problem. There just isn't much incentive to emulating a personal website. Maybe someone will, but they don't get much traffic and don't make any money.

ochrist 4y ago

Brilliant. I don't think I have ever heard of this before. Will definitely check this out.

marginalia_nu 4y ago
It's still some way away from being viable as a daily driver search engine. It's gotten a lot better, but it's still fairly limited from its small index.