5 ms·

Do you not see ChatGPT and Claude as viable alternatives to search? They've certainly replaced a fair chunk of my queries.

bediger4000 1y ago
I do not. I prefer to read the primary sources, LLM summaries are, after all, probabilistic, and based on syntax. I'm often looking for semantics, and an LLM really really is not going to give me that.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  Funny, I use LLM's for so much search now because they understand my query semantically, not just its syntax. Keyword matching fails completely for certain types of searching.
  - balder1991 1y ago
    Also weirdly LLMs like ChatGPT can give good sources that usually wouldn’t be at the top of a Google query.
    - matwood 1y ago
      There’s a particular Italian government website and the only way I can find it is through ChatGPT. It’s a sub site under another site and I assume it’s the context of my question that surfaces the site when Google wouldn’t.
- throwaway314155 1y ago
  ChatGPT provides sources for a lot of queries, particularly if you ask. I'm not defending it, but you can get what claim to want in an easier interface than Google.
- sothatsit 1y ago
  Tools like GPT-5 Thinking are actually pretty great at linking you to primary sources. It has become my go-to search tool because even though it is slower, the results are better. Especially for things like finding documentation. I basically only use Google for "take me to this web page I already know exists" queries now, and maps.
  - Rohansi 1y ago
    > pretty great at linking you to primary sources Do you check all of the sources though? Those can be hallucinated and you may not notice unless you're always checking them. Or it could have misunderstood the source. It's easy to assume it's always accurate when it generally is. But it's not always.
    - sothatsit 1y ago
      I have noticed it hallucinating links when it can't find any relevant documentation at all, but otherwise it is pretty good. And yes, I do check them. The type of search you are doing probably matters a lot here as well. I use it to find documentation for software I am already moderately familiar with, so noticing the hallucinations is not that difficult. Although, hallucinations are pretty rare for this type of "find documentation for XYZ thing in ABC software" query. Plus, it usually doesn't take very long to verify the information. I did get caught once by it mentioning something was possible that wasn't, but out of probably thousands of queries I've done at this point, that's not so bad. Saying that, I definitely don't trust LLMs in any cases where information is subjective. But when you're just talking about fact search, hallucination rates are pretty low, at least for GPT-5 Thinking (although still non-zero). That said, I have also run into a number of problems where the documentation is out-of-date, but there's not much an LLM could do about that.
    - matwood 1y ago
      > It's easy to assume it's always accurate when it generally is. But it's not always. So like a lot of the internet? I don’t really understand this idea that LLMs have to be right 100% of the time to be useful. Very little of the web currently meets that standard and society uses it every day.
- the_duke 1y ago
  Gemini 2.5 always provides a lot of references, without being prompted to do so. ChatGPT 5 also does, especially with deep research.
- whycome 1y ago
  Since when does google give your primary sources for simple queries? You have to wade through all the garbage. At least an LLM will give you the general path and provide sources.
  - blinding-streak 1y ago
    Google's AI responses cite primary sources.
- scarface_74 1y ago
  ChatGPT gives you web citations from real time web searches.
- hackinthebochs 1y ago
  That Searlesque syntax/semantics dichotomy isn't as clear cut as it once was. Yes, programs operate syntactically. But when semantics is assigned to particular syntactic structures, as it is with word embeddings, the computer is then able to operate on semantics through its facility with syntax. These old standard thought patterns need to be reconsidered in the age of LLMs.
- pas 1y ago
  it's not syntax, it's data driven (yes of course syntax contributes to that) https://freedium.cfd/https://vinithavn.medium.com/from-multi-head-to-latent-attention-the-evolution-of-attention-mechanisms-64e3c0505f24 https://freedium.cfd/https://vinithavn.medium.com/from-multi... At its core, attention operates through three fundamental components — queries, keys, and values — that work together with attention scores to create a flexible, context-aware vector representation. Query (Q): The query is a vector that represents the current token for which the model wants to compute attention. Key (K): Keys are vectors that represent the elements in the context against which the query is compared, to determine the relevance. Attention Scores: These are computed using Query and Key vectors to determine the amount of attention to be paid to each context token. Value (V): Values are the vectors that represent the actual contextual information. After calculating the attention scores using Query and Key vectors, these scores are applied against Value vectors to get the final context vector
ElijahLynn 1y ago
Same, my Google use has dropped noticeably, probably 90%. I remember the feeling when I first started using ChatGPT in late 2022, and it's the same feeling I had when Google search came out in the early 2000s. And that was like, "oh chatgpt is the new Google".
- hangonhn 1y ago
  Same feeling for me as well. It was like the old Google where it lead you to the right answer. ChatGPT is similar but in some ways smoother because it's conversational. I think most days I don't even use Google at all. That said their "Dive into AI" feature has cause me to use it more lately.
wiredpancake 1y ago
You are losing braincells relying almost entirely on ChatGPT.
- yamazakiwi 1y ago
  I'm losing braincells relying on Google Search shoving ad riddled trash in my face and even worse AI results. Gemini frequently just straight up lies to me. Saying the opposite of the truth so frequently I have experienced negative consequences in real life believing it. The only people who are being homogenized or "down-graded" by Chat GPT are people who wouldn't have sought other sophisticated strategies in the first place, and those who understand that Chat GPT is a tool and understand how it works, and it's context, can utilize it efficiently with great positive effect. Obviously Chat GPT is not perfect but it doesn't need to be perfect to be useful. For a search user, Google Search has not been effective for so long it's unbelievable people still use it. That is, if you believe search should be a helpful tool with utility and not a product made to generate maximum revenue at the cost of search experience. Would you say that people were losing braincells using google in 2010 to look up an animal fact instead of going to a library and opening an encyclopedia?
  - dns_snek 1y ago
    > Gemini frequently just straight up lies to me I'm pretty sure they meant LLMs in general, not just ChatGPT. They all straight up lie to very similar degrees, no contest there. > The only people who are being homogenized or "down-graded" by Chat GPT are people who wouldn't have sought other sophisticated strategies in the first place, and those who understand that Chat GPT is a tool and understand how it works, and it's context, can utilize it efficiently with great positive effect. I know for a fact that this isn't true. I have a friend who was really smart, probably used to have an IQ of 120 and he would agree with all of this. But a few of us are noticing that he's essentially being lobotomized by LLMs and we've been trying to warn him but he just doesn't see it, he's under the impression that "he's using LLMs efficiently with great positive effect". In reality his intellectual capabilities (which I used to really respect) have withered and he gets strangely argumentative about really basic concepts that he's absolutely wrong about. It seems like he won't accept it as true until an LLM says so. We used to laugh at those people together because this could never happen to us, so don't think that it can never happen to you. Word of advice for anyone reading this: If multiple people in your life suddenly start warning you that your LLM interactions seem to be becoming a problem for one reason or another, make the best possible effort to hear them out and take them seriously. I know it probably sounds absurd from your point of view, but that's simply a flaw in our own perception of ourselves, we don't see ourselves objectively, we don't realize when we've changed.
ajross 1y ago
> Do you not see ChatGPT and Claude as viable alternatives to search? This subthread is classic HN. Huge depth of replies all chiming in to state some form of the original prior: that "AI is a threat to search"... ... without even a nod to the fact that by far the best LLM-assisted search experience today is available for free at the Google prompt. And it's not even close, really. People are so set in their positions here that they've stopped even attempting to survey the market those opinions are about. (And yes, I'm biased I guess because they pay me. But to work on firmware and not AI.)
- socksy 1y ago
  What? The Google LLM assisted search experience is... not the best option by a long shot? It's laughably incorrect in many cases, and infuriatingly incorrect in the others. It forces itself into your queries above the fold without being asked, and then bullshits to you. A recentish example, I was trying to remember which cities' buses were in Thessaloniki before they got a new batch recently. They used to rent from a company (Papadakis Bros) that would buy out of commission buses from other cities around the world and maintain the fleet. I could remember specifically that there were some BVG Busses from Berlin, and some Dutch buses, and was vaguely wondering if there were some also from Stockholm I couldn't remember. So I searched on my iPad, which defaulted to Google (since clearly I hadn't got around to setting up a good search engine on it yet). And I get this result: https://i.imgur.com/pm512HU.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/pm512HU.jpeg The LLM forced its way in there without me prompting (in e.g. Kagi, you opt in by ending the query with a question mark). It fundamentally misunderstands the question. It then treats me like an idiot for not understanding that Stockholm is a city in Sweden, and Thessaloniki a city in Greece. It uses its back linking functionality to help cite this great insight. And it takes up the entire page! There's not a single search result in view. This is such a painful experience, it confirms my existing bias that since they introduced LLMs (and honestly for a couple years before that) that Google is no longer a good first place to go for information. It's more of a last resort. Both ChatGPT and Claude have a free tier, and the ability to do searches. Here's what ChatGPT gave me: https://chatgpt.com/share/68b78eb7-d7b4-8006-81e0-ab2c548931ba https://chatgpt.com/share/68b78eb7-d7b4-8006-81e0-ab2c548931... A lot of casual users don't hit the free tier limits (and indeedI've not hit any limits on the free ChatGPT yet), and while they have their problems they're both far better than the Gemini powered summaries Google have been pumping out. My suggestion is that perhaps you haven't surveyed the market before suggesting that "by far the best LLM-assisted search experience today is available for free at the Google prompt".
adam_arthur 1y ago
Google Search has AI responses at the top of the fold. Eventually those answers will be sufficient for most and give people no reason to move to alternatives. Allowing them to pay to be default seems to mostly guarantee this outcome
- rockskon 1y ago
  Those answers with the awful model they're using are frequently wrong and aggravating to have displace search results.
quitit 1y ago
I'm noticing that newer computer users seek information exclusively from chatgpt and that they don't google at all. They want the answer right away and aren't usually aware or bothered with the hallucination problem. While that's concerning, my own experience in seeking information using this approach has been positive: it provides a fast, fully customised answer that easily outweighs the mistakes it makes. This flattens the learning curve on a new subject and with that saved time I am able to confirm important details to weed out the mistakes/hallucinations. Whereas with Googling I'd be reading technical documentation, blog posts and whatever else I could find, and -crucially- I'd still need to be confirming the important details because that step was never optional. Another plus is that I'm now not subjected to low quality ai-generated blog spam when seeking information. I foresee Google search losing relevance rapidly, chatbots are the path of least resistance and "good enough" for most tasks, but I also am aware that Google's surveillance-based data collection will continue to be fruitful for them regardless if I use Google search or not.

bediger4000 1y ago

I do not. I prefer to read the primary sources, LLM summaries are, after all, probabilistic, and based on syntax. I'm often looking for semantics, and an LLM really really is not going to give me that.

crazygringo 1y ago
Funny, I use LLM's for so much search now because they understand my query semantically, not just its syntax. Keyword matching fails completely for certain types of searching.
- balder1991 1y ago
  Also weirdly LLMs like ChatGPT can give good sources that usually wouldn’t be at the top of a Google query.
  - matwood 1y ago
    There’s a particular Italian government website and the only way I can find it is through ChatGPT. It’s a sub site under another site and I assume it’s the context of my question that surfaces the site when Google wouldn’t.
throwaway314155 1y ago
ChatGPT provides sources for a lot of queries, particularly if you ask. I'm not defending it, but you can get what claim to want in an easier interface than Google.
sothatsit 1y ago
Tools like GPT-5 Thinking are actually pretty great at linking you to primary sources. It has become my go-to search tool because even though it is slower, the results are better. Especially for things like finding documentation. I basically only use Google for "take me to this web page I already know exists" queries now, and maps.
- Rohansi 1y ago
  > pretty great at linking you to primary sources Do you check all of the sources though? Those can be hallucinated and you may not notice unless you're always checking them. Or it could have misunderstood the source. It's easy to assume it's always accurate when it generally is. But it's not always.
  - sothatsit 1y ago
    I have noticed it hallucinating links when it can't find any relevant documentation at all, but otherwise it is pretty good. And yes, I do check them. The type of search you are doing probably matters a lot here as well. I use it to find documentation for software I am already moderately familiar with, so noticing the hallucinations is not that difficult. Although, hallucinations are pretty rare for this type of "find documentation for XYZ thing in ABC software" query. Plus, it usually doesn't take very long to verify the information. I did get caught once by it mentioning something was possible that wasn't, but out of probably thousands of queries I've done at this point, that's not so bad. Saying that, I definitely don't trust LLMs in any cases where information is subjective. But when you're just talking about fact search, hallucination rates are pretty low, at least for GPT-5 Thinking (although still non-zero). That said, I have also run into a number of problems where the documentation is out-of-date, but there's not much an LLM could do about that.
  - matwood 1y ago
    > It's easy to assume it's always accurate when it generally is. But it's not always. So like a lot of the internet? I don’t really understand this idea that LLMs have to be right 100% of the time to be useful. Very little of the web currently meets that standard and society uses it every day.
the_duke 1y ago
Gemini 2.5 always provides a lot of references, without being prompted to do so. ChatGPT 5 also does, especially with deep research.
whycome 1y ago
Since when does google give your primary sources for simple queries? You have to wade through all the garbage. At least an LLM will give you the general path and provide sources.
- blinding-streak 1y ago
  Google's AI responses cite primary sources.
scarface_74 1y ago
ChatGPT gives you web citations from real time web searches.
hackinthebochs 1y ago
That Searlesque syntax/semantics dichotomy isn't as clear cut as it once was. Yes, programs operate syntactically. But when semantics is assigned to particular syntactic structures, as it is with word embeddings, the computer is then able to operate on semantics through its facility with syntax. These old standard thought patterns need to be reconsidered in the age of LLMs.
pas 1y ago
it's not syntax, it's data driven (yes of course syntax contributes to that) https://freedium.cfd/https://vinithavn.medium.com/from-multi-head-to-latent-attention-the-evolution-of-attention-mechanisms-64e3c0505f24 https://freedium.cfd/https://vinithavn.medium.com/from-multi... At its core, attention operates through three fundamental components — queries, keys, and values — that work together with attention scores to create a flexible, context-aware vector representation. Query (Q): The query is a vector that represents the current token for which the model wants to compute attention. Key (K): Keys are vectors that represent the elements in the context against which the query is compared, to determine the relevance. Attention Scores: These are computed using Query and Key vectors to determine the amount of attention to be paid to each context token. Value (V): Values are the vectors that represent the actual contextual information. After calculating the attention scores using Query and Key vectors, these scores are applied against Value vectors to get the final context vector

ElijahLynn 1y ago

Same, my Google use has dropped noticeably, probably 90%. I remember the feeling when I first started using ChatGPT in late 2022, and it's the same feeling I had when Google search came out in the early 2000s. And that was like, "oh chatgpt is the new Google".

hangonhn 1y ago
Same feeling for me as well. It was like the old Google where it lead you to the right answer. ChatGPT is similar but in some ways smoother because it's conversational. I think most days I don't even use Google at all. That said their "Dive into AI" feature has cause me to use it more lately.

wiredpancake 1y ago

You are losing braincells relying almost entirely on ChatGPT.

yamazakiwi 1y ago
I'm losing braincells relying on Google Search shoving ad riddled trash in my face and even worse AI results. Gemini frequently just straight up lies to me. Saying the opposite of the truth so frequently I have experienced negative consequences in real life believing it. The only people who are being homogenized or "down-graded" by Chat GPT are people who wouldn't have sought other sophisticated strategies in the first place, and those who understand that Chat GPT is a tool and understand how it works, and it's context, can utilize it efficiently with great positive effect. Obviously Chat GPT is not perfect but it doesn't need to be perfect to be useful. For a search user, Google Search has not been effective for so long it's unbelievable people still use it. That is, if you believe search should be a helpful tool with utility and not a product made to generate maximum revenue at the cost of search experience. Would you say that people were losing braincells using google in 2010 to look up an animal fact instead of going to a library and opening an encyclopedia?
- dns_snek 1y ago
  > Gemini frequently just straight up lies to me I'm pretty sure they meant LLMs in general, not just ChatGPT. They all straight up lie to very similar degrees, no contest there. > The only people who are being homogenized or "down-graded" by Chat GPT are people who wouldn't have sought other sophisticated strategies in the first place, and those who understand that Chat GPT is a tool and understand how it works, and it's context, can utilize it efficiently with great positive effect. I know for a fact that this isn't true. I have a friend who was really smart, probably used to have an IQ of 120 and he would agree with all of this. But a few of us are noticing that he's essentially being lobotomized by LLMs and we've been trying to warn him but he just doesn't see it, he's under the impression that "he's using LLMs efficiently with great positive effect". In reality his intellectual capabilities (which I used to really respect) have withered and he gets strangely argumentative about really basic concepts that he's absolutely wrong about. It seems like he won't accept it as true until an LLM says so. We used to laugh at those people together because this could never happen to us, so don't think that it can never happen to you. Word of advice for anyone reading this: If multiple people in your life suddenly start warning you that your LLM interactions seem to be becoming a problem for one reason or another, make the best possible effort to hear them out and take them seriously. I know it probably sounds absurd from your point of view, but that's simply a flaw in our own perception of ourselves, we don't see ourselves objectively, we don't realize when we've changed.

ajross 1y ago

> Do you not see ChatGPT and Claude as viable alternatives to search? This subthread is classic HN. Huge depth of replies all chiming in to state some form of the original prior: that "AI is a threat to search"... ... without even a nod to the fact that by far the best LLM-assisted search experience today is available for free at the Google prompt. And it's not even close, really. People are so set in their positions here that they've stopped even attempting to survey the market those opinions are about. (And yes, I'm biased I guess because they pay me. But to work on firmware and not AI.)

socksy 1y ago
What? The Google LLM assisted search experience is... not the best option by a long shot? It's laughably incorrect in many cases, and infuriatingly incorrect in the others. It forces itself into your queries above the fold without being asked, and then bullshits to you. A recentish example, I was trying to remember which cities' buses were in Thessaloniki before they got a new batch recently. They used to rent from a company (Papadakis Bros) that would buy out of commission buses from other cities around the world and maintain the fleet. I could remember specifically that there were some BVG Busses from Berlin, and some Dutch buses, and was vaguely wondering if there were some also from Stockholm I couldn't remember. So I searched on my iPad, which defaulted to Google (since clearly I hadn't got around to setting up a good search engine on it yet). And I get this result: https://i.imgur.com/pm512HU.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/pm512HU.jpeg The LLM forced its way in there without me prompting (in e.g. Kagi, you opt in by ending the query with a question mark). It fundamentally misunderstands the question. It then treats me like an idiot for not understanding that Stockholm is a city in Sweden, and Thessaloniki a city in Greece. It uses its back linking functionality to help cite this great insight. And it takes up the entire page! There's not a single search result in view. This is such a painful experience, it confirms my existing bias that since they introduced LLMs (and honestly for a couple years before that) that Google is no longer a good first place to go for information. It's more of a last resort. Both ChatGPT and Claude have a free tier, and the ability to do searches. Here's what ChatGPT gave me: https://chatgpt.com/share/68b78eb7-d7b4-8006-81e0-ab2c548931ba https://chatgpt.com/share/68b78eb7-d7b4-8006-81e0-ab2c548931... A lot of casual users don't hit the free tier limits (and indeedI've not hit any limits on the free ChatGPT yet), and while they have their problems they're both far better than the Gemini powered summaries Google have been pumping out. My suggestion is that perhaps you haven't surveyed the market before suggesting that "by far the best LLM-assisted search experience today is available for free at the Google prompt".

adam_arthur 1y ago

Google Search has AI responses at the top of the fold. Eventually those answers will be sufficient for most and give people no reason to move to alternatives. Allowing them to pay to be default seems to mostly guarantee this outcome

rockskon 1y ago
Those answers with the awful model they're using are frequently wrong and aggravating to have displace search results.

quitit 1y ago

I'm noticing that newer computer users seek information exclusively from chatgpt and that they don't google at all. They want the answer right away and aren't usually aware or bothered with the hallucination problem. While that's concerning, my own experience in seeking information using this approach has been positive: it provides a fast, fully customised answer that easily outweighs the mistakes it makes. This flattens the learning curve on a new subject and with that saved time I am able to confirm important details to weed out the mistakes/hallucinations. Whereas with Googling I'd be reading technical documentation, blog posts and whatever else I could find, and -crucially- I'd still need to be confirming the important details because that step was never optional. Another plus is that I'm now not subjected to low quality ai-generated blog spam when seeking information. I foresee Google search losing relevance rapidly, chatbots are the path of least resistance and "good enough" for most tasks, but I also am aware that Google's surveillance-based data collection will continue to be fruitful for them regardless if I use Google search or not.