[pacifika]

The only correct user of generative ai is one that can evaluate the results. Which is why it’s not a tool for non subject area experts.

That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn anyway. So it’s a good tool for the customer service team not a replacement for it

[GhostVII]

It's also useful if you restrict it to only providing information verbatim (ex. A link to a cars specifications) vs actually trying to generatively answer questions. Then it becomes more of a search tool than actually generating information. The Chevrolet bot tries to do this, but doesn't have strict enough guardrails.

[jeroenhd]

I still think it's a great tool for when truthfulness and accuracy don't matter. It's not exactly creative, but it can spew out some pretty useful fiction for things like text adventures and other fictional filler text.

I'm personally using it because SEO bullshit has ruined search engines. AI can still sift through bullshit search results, for now. The key is assuming the AI lies and actually reading the page it links, because it'll make up facts and summaries even if they directly oppose the quoted source material.

I fear AI tools will soon befall the same faith as Google (where searching for an obscure term will land you a page of search results that's 75% malware and phishing links), but for now Bard and Bing Chat have their uses.

[wildrhythms]

The problem is tech illiterate know-nothings I encounter daily in management (at a tech company no less) have been told or fooled into thinking these LLMs are some sort of knowledge engine. I even see it on HN when people suggest using a LLM in place of a search engine. How did we get to this point?

[fastneutron]

We got to this point because search engine results have become so polluted with sponsored links, low quality blogspam and SEO’d clones of Wikipedia and Stack Overflow that LLM responses are the only source of direct information that actually answers the original question.

[gosub100]

isn't it funny that we've come full circle to just paying for search results? Which was something Google could have done long ago (and there's a new company offering paid-search services that people talk about on here, I can't recall the name).

So they create the problem by increasing ads and spam in the result, then sell you the A.I. solution. What's next? Put more insidious ads that still answer the original query but have an oblique reference to a paid product?

[thfuran]

Google charging users for search would help clear up search results a bit if they didn't also charge sites for higher placement, but it wouldn't fix SEO. As long as sites have a way to get money for you clicking on them, whether by ad views or product sales, they'll have an incentive to get ranked higher in search results.

[kevincali]

The paid search service is called Kagi. It's pretty good.

[notnaut]

It is basically 100x better at providing accurate and succinct responses to simple questions than a google search is nowadays. Trying to get it to explain things or provide facts about things is dubious, but so is a huge majority of the crap google feeds to you when you aren’t technically adept.

[krainboltgreene]

> but it can spew out some pretty useful fiction for things like text adventures and other fictional filler text.

It can generate output, but I'd not want to use it for anything because it's all so poorly written.

[butlike]

A while ago I wanted it to promise to do something. GPT was resistant, so I asked it to say the word "promise." Asked it 3 times, then said: "that's three times now you promised." Which should be legally-binding if nothing else is