5 ms·

I recently bought a DDG subscription because of their duck.ai service. For $10/month it’s great to have someone whose incentives are aligned with my own manag

by rectang 11mo ago

I recently bought a DDG subscription because of their duck.ai service. For $10/month it’s great to have someone whose incentives are aligned with my own managing my relationships with AI companies I’d otherwise have to monitor constantly for privacy abuses. I haven’t noticed a recent degradation in DDG’s search results, but I’m also turning to duck.ai more frequently and on the whole my search/investigation experience is better. The one significant downside is that duck.ai limits the length of your chats, but considering the price that’s not surprising. The direction I’d like to see the industry go is better integration of search results into AI chat, blurring the distinction between the two. That would make both products more compelling: search results are made more friendly with AI summaries, and original sources help to counter AI hallucinations and obsequious blather.

lossyalgo 11mo ago
AI is killing websites[0]. Why visit a website if the AI summary is good? But soon, if everyone is only using AI results, then there will be no reason to create new websites, unless you don't care about anyone visiting your site except for AI crawlers. [0]: I won't bother linking any articles since there are too many articles on the subject and whatever I link is probably not the site you want (or is maybe paywalled).
- rectang 11mo ago
  There are many serious ethical and practical problems posed by the rise of LLMs, and I agree that this is one. My hope is that AI helps to fine tune inquiries and helps users discover websites that would otherwise not have been uncovered by traditional index-based search. Unfortunately it’s in the interests of search and AI companies to keep you inside their portals, so they may be less than willing to link to the outside even when it would improve the experience.
  - lossyalgo 11mo ago
    Hard agree. I was recently at a talk from Jaron Lanier[0], who proposed that AI should, after every query, present on the right-side of the page a list of all clickable sources where AI gathered it's data from, so that we could verify accuracy, as well as allowing us to continue giving traffic to websites. [0] https://www.jaronlanier.com https://www.jaronlanier.com edit: grammar
    - mystraline 11mo ago
      When I do use LLMs, I explicitly ask for all claims with a footnote and the source used for citation. I almost always get the claim(1) and footnote with URL or book, or DOI.
      - stuaxo 11mo ago
        These will mostly match, but they arent nessecarily the sources just some links that are plausibly the sources.
    - bloggie 11mo ago
      I haven't used LLMs much but Perplexity always give me tons of links, I really appreciate it vs. chatgpt.
    - HeinzStuckeIt 11mo ago
      > AI should, after every query, present on the right-side of the page a list of all clickable sources The default internet device these days is the phone; so many people don’t even use desktop any more. Space limitations on small screens mean that this is unlikely to be shown by default. Moreover, phone interfaces discourage most users from opening multiple new tabs forking off any webpage. You might show desktop users this and get some uptake, but that’s not enough to save the open web.
  - imiric 11mo ago
    > Unfortunately it’s in the interests of search and AI companies to keep you inside their portals, so they may be less than willing to link to the outside even when it would improve the experience. This is true, but aren't "AI" summaries directly opposed to this interest? The user will usually get the answer they need much more quickly than if they had to scroll down the page, hunt for the right result, and get exposed to ads. So "AI" summaries are actually the better user experience. In time I'm sure that we'll see ads embedded in these as well, but in the current stage of the "AI" hype cycle, users actually benefit from this feature.
  - brookst 11mo ago
    Might as well hope that websites optimize for sending people to bookstores.
- imiric 11mo ago
  > AI is killing websites I think that's hyperbole. Yes, users can rely on "AI" summaries if they want a quick answer, but they've been able to do that for years via page snippets underneath each result, which usually highlight the relevant part of the page. The same argument was made when search engines began showing page snippets, yet we found a balance, and websites are still alive. On the contrary, there's an argument to be made that search engines providing answers is the better user experience. I don't want to be forced to visit a website, which will likely have filler, popups, and be SEO'd to hell, when I can get the information I want in a fraction of the time and effort, within a consistent interface. If I do need additional information, then I can go to the source. I do agree with the idea you mention below of search engines providing source links, but even without it, "AI" summaries can hardly be blamed for hurting website traffic. Websites are doing that on their own with user hostile design, SEO spam, scams, etc. There is a long list of issues we can criticize search engines for, and the use of "AI" even more so, but machine-generated summaries on SERPs is not one of them IMO.
  - lossyalgo 11mo ago
    I guess you didn't take up my offer to search for how AI is killing traffic. There are numerous studies that repeatedly prove this to be true, this relatively recent article links to a big pile of them[0]. Why would anyone visit a website, if the AI summary is seemingly good enough? My issue with AI summaries is that they are not even remotely accurate, trustworthy or deterministic. Someone else posted this wonderful evidence[1] in the comments. LLMs are sycophantic and agree with you all the time, even if it means making shit up. Maybe things will improve, but for the last 2 years, I have not seen much progress regarding hallucinations or deterministic i.e. reliable/trustworthy responses. They are still stochastic token guessers with some magic tricks sprinkled on top to make results slightly better than last month's LLMs. And what happens when people stop creating new websites because they aren't getting any visitors (and by extension ad-revenue)? New info will stop being disseminated. Where will AI summarize data, if there is no new data to summarize? I guess they can just keep rehashing the new AI-generated websites, and it will be one big pile of endlessly recycled AI shit :) p.s. I don't disagree with you regarding SEO spam, hostile design, cookie popups, etc. There is even a hilariously sad website[2] which points out how annoying websites have become. But using non-deterministic sycophantic AI to "summarize" websites is not the answer, at least not in the current form. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/22/google_ai_overviews_suppress_search/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/22/google_ai_overviews_s... [1] https://imgur.com/a/why-llm-based-search-is-scam-lAd3UHn https://imgur.com/a/why-llm-based-search-is-scam-lAd3UHn [2] https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/ https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/ edit: grammar
- rr808 11mo ago
  agreed, the other half is that most websites now are just AI generated slop that makes you wonder why you even bothered to look at the actual website instead of the llm.
- graemep 11mo ago
  > Why visit a website if the AI summary is good? That is a big if. A summary cannot be better than what is summarizes in any was but brevity. It can be much worse.
  - dylan604 11mo ago
    Let me remind you of recipe websites as an example of how summaries can be better by ignoring all of the useless crap that has nothing to do with making the dish
    - lossyalgo 11mo ago
      Agreed, but only assuming the summary is accurate and not hallucinating, which the current state of LLMs sadly can not guarantee. Maybe next year?
  - brookst 11mo ago
    Noise reduction has tons of value in many fields.
    - rectang 11mo ago
      I find that if I describe an esoteric bug to a high powered LLM, I often get to my answer more quickly than if I trawl through endless search results. The synthesis itself is a valuable addition. Frequently I cannot even find source documents which match my exact circumstances; I’m uncertain whether they actually exist.
- brookst 11mo ago
  I hope it was intentional humor that you summarized a view and did not link. Your own small contribution to killing websites?
  - lossyalgo 11mo ago
    [dead]
- potro 11mo ago
  Summary is supposed to give you a taste of what the link destination talks about. If most of the page information can be fitted in one paragraph of summarization, the problem is with webpage, and visiting that webpage would have been a waste of the user time.

by rectang 11mo ago

lossyalgo 11mo ago

AI is killing websites[0]. Why visit a website if the AI summary is good? But soon, if everyone is only using AI results, then there will be no reason to create new websites, unless you don't care about anyone visiting your site except for AI crawlers. [0]: I won't bother linking any articles since there are too many articles on the subject and whatever I link is probably not the site you want (or is maybe paywalled).

rectang 11mo ago
There are many serious ethical and practical problems posed by the rise of LLMs, and I agree that this is one. My hope is that AI helps to fine tune inquiries and helps users discover websites that would otherwise not have been uncovered by traditional index-based search. Unfortunately it’s in the interests of search and AI companies to keep you inside their portals, so they may be less than willing to link to the outside even when it would improve the experience.
- lossyalgo 11mo ago
  Hard agree. I was recently at a talk from Jaron Lanier[0], who proposed that AI should, after every query, present on the right-side of the page a list of all clickable sources where AI gathered it's data from, so that we could verify accuracy, as well as allowing us to continue giving traffic to websites. [0] https://www.jaronlanier.com https://www.jaronlanier.com edit: grammar
  - mystraline 11mo ago
    When I do use LLMs, I explicitly ask for all claims with a footnote and the source used for citation. I almost always get the claim(1) and footnote with URL or book, or DOI.
    - stuaxo 11mo ago
      These will mostly match, but they arent nessecarily the sources just some links that are plausibly the sources.
  - bloggie 11mo ago
    I haven't used LLMs much but Perplexity always give me tons of links, I really appreciate it vs. chatgpt.
  - HeinzStuckeIt 11mo ago
    > AI should, after every query, present on the right-side of the page a list of all clickable sources The default internet device these days is the phone; so many people don’t even use desktop any more. Space limitations on small screens mean that this is unlikely to be shown by default. Moreover, phone interfaces discourage most users from opening multiple new tabs forking off any webpage. You might show desktop users this and get some uptake, but that’s not enough to save the open web.
- imiric 11mo ago
  > Unfortunately it’s in the interests of search and AI companies to keep you inside their portals, so they may be less than willing to link to the outside even when it would improve the experience. This is true, but aren't "AI" summaries directly opposed to this interest? The user will usually get the answer they need much more quickly than if they had to scroll down the page, hunt for the right result, and get exposed to ads. So "AI" summaries are actually the better user experience. In time I'm sure that we'll see ads embedded in these as well, but in the current stage of the "AI" hype cycle, users actually benefit from this feature.
- brookst 11mo ago
  Might as well hope that websites optimize for sending people to bookstores.
imiric 11mo ago
> AI is killing websites I think that's hyperbole. Yes, users can rely on "AI" summaries if they want a quick answer, but they've been able to do that for years via page snippets underneath each result, which usually highlight the relevant part of the page. The same argument was made when search engines began showing page snippets, yet we found a balance, and websites are still alive. On the contrary, there's an argument to be made that search engines providing answers is the better user experience. I don't want to be forced to visit a website, which will likely have filler, popups, and be SEO'd to hell, when I can get the information I want in a fraction of the time and effort, within a consistent interface. If I do need additional information, then I can go to the source. I do agree with the idea you mention below of search engines providing source links, but even without it, "AI" summaries can hardly be blamed for hurting website traffic. Websites are doing that on their own with user hostile design, SEO spam, scams, etc. There is a long list of issues we can criticize search engines for, and the use of "AI" even more so, but machine-generated summaries on SERPs is not one of them IMO.
- lossyalgo 11mo ago
  I guess you didn't take up my offer to search for how AI is killing traffic. There are numerous studies that repeatedly prove this to be true, this relatively recent article links to a big pile of them[0]. Why would anyone visit a website, if the AI summary is seemingly good enough? My issue with AI summaries is that they are not even remotely accurate, trustworthy or deterministic. Someone else posted this wonderful evidence[1] in the comments. LLMs are sycophantic and agree with you all the time, even if it means making shit up. Maybe things will improve, but for the last 2 years, I have not seen much progress regarding hallucinations or deterministic i.e. reliable/trustworthy responses. They are still stochastic token guessers with some magic tricks sprinkled on top to make results slightly better than last month's LLMs. And what happens when people stop creating new websites because they aren't getting any visitors (and by extension ad-revenue)? New info will stop being disseminated. Where will AI summarize data, if there is no new data to summarize? I guess they can just keep rehashing the new AI-generated websites, and it will be one big pile of endlessly recycled AI shit :) p.s. I don't disagree with you regarding SEO spam, hostile design, cookie popups, etc. There is even a hilariously sad website[2] which points out how annoying websites have become. But using non-deterministic sycophantic AI to "summarize" websites is not the answer, at least not in the current form. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/22/google_ai_overviews_suppress_search/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/22/google_ai_overviews_s... [1] https://imgur.com/a/why-llm-based-search-is-scam-lAd3UHn https://imgur.com/a/why-llm-based-search-is-scam-lAd3UHn [2] https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/ https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/ edit: grammar
rr808 11mo ago
agreed, the other half is that most websites now are just AI generated slop that makes you wonder why you even bothered to look at the actual website instead of the llm.
graemep 11mo ago
> Why visit a website if the AI summary is good? That is a big if. A summary cannot be better than what is summarizes in any was but brevity. It can be much worse.
- dylan604 11mo ago
  Let me remind you of recipe websites as an example of how summaries can be better by ignoring all of the useless crap that has nothing to do with making the dish
  - lossyalgo 11mo ago
    Agreed, but only assuming the summary is accurate and not hallucinating, which the current state of LLMs sadly can not guarantee. Maybe next year?
- brookst 11mo ago
  Noise reduction has tons of value in many fields.
  - rectang 11mo ago
    I find that if I describe an esoteric bug to a high powered LLM, I often get to my answer more quickly than if I trawl through endless search results. The synthesis itself is a valuable addition. Frequently I cannot even find source documents which match my exact circumstances; I’m uncertain whether they actually exist.
brookst 11mo ago
I hope it was intentional humor that you summarized a view and did not link. Your own small contribution to killing websites?
- lossyalgo 11mo ago
  [dead]
potro 11mo ago
Summary is supposed to give you a taste of what the link destination talks about. If most of the page information can be fitted in one paragraph of summarization, the problem is with webpage, and visiting that webpage would have been a waste of the user time.