4 ms·

It is interesting how all the value you are getting from the ai seems to be from the fact modern web search is broken.

EnergyAmy 3y ago
It's not just search being broken, it's much of the web being an ad-ridden morass. With a great search engine, I could get directed to a bunch of shitty sites that may or may not have what I'm looking for, if I can find it under the half-dozen overlays for cookies and newsletters. Or I could just use one, simple interface that lets me ask specific follow-up questions that are relevant to my use case. I'll take the risk of hallucinations over one more "Before we show you this recipe, here's the history of food" any day.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
That's part of it but I wouldn't overstate that. Even if Google hadn't been enshittified with ads, blogspam and SEO cruft, I'd still prefer ChatGPT for all the same cases I love it for now. For example, I love how ChatGPT lets me "search" for things when I don't even know the name/keywords of things to search for, but instead I can ask it in natural language for example "I'm trying to generate this kind of view in SQL, how would I do that?" - at the very least ChatGPT will inform me of some json operator or window function I didn't know about, so now at least I'm "grounded" in what to search for. And I think more importantly, even if search did bring back the exact correct webpage in answer to my question, the interactive nature of ChatGPT and the ability to ask it questions specific to my detailed, individual use case are invaluable and just much faster.
amluto 3y ago
ChatGPT is decently good at synthesizing coherent, on-point docs out of the generally messy stuff online. Even when Google was good, it couldn’t do this. (ChatGPT is merely decently good, not perfect or anywhere near close. But it’s still useful.)
- neuralRiot 3y ago
  I see the future of chatGPT, “Here’s my take on that topic, also let me show you “this product”(insert link) that will make doing what you want much easier”

It's not just search being broken, it's much of the web being an ad-ridden morass. With a great search engine, I could get directed to a bunch of shitty sites that may or may not have what I'm looking for, if I can find it under the half-dozen overlays for cookies and newsletters. Or I could just use one, simple interface that lets me ask specific follow-up questions that are relevant to my use case. I'll take the risk of hallucinations over one more "Before we show you this recipe, here's the history of food" any day.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

That's part of it but I wouldn't overstate that. Even if Google hadn't been enshittified with ads, blogspam and SEO cruft, I'd still prefer ChatGPT for all the same cases I love it for now. For example, I love how ChatGPT lets me "search" for things when I don't even know the name/keywords of things to search for, but instead I can ask it in natural language for example "I'm trying to generate this kind of view in SQL, how would I do that?" - at the very least ChatGPT will inform me of some json operator or window function I didn't know about, so now at least I'm "grounded" in what to search for. And I think more importantly, even if search did bring back the exact correct webpage in answer to my question, the interactive nature of ChatGPT and the ability to ask it questions specific to my detailed, individual use case are invaluable and just much faster.

amluto 3y ago

ChatGPT is decently good at synthesizing coherent, on-point docs out of the generally messy stuff online. Even when Google was good, it couldn’t do this. (ChatGPT is merely decently good, not perfect or anywhere near close. But it’s still useful.)

neuralRiot 3y ago
I see the future of chatGPT, “Here’s my take on that topic, also let me show you “this product”(insert link) that will make doing what you want much easier”