[redeux]

You can just use Gopher, you don’t need Google for this.

I’m being flippant, obviously but my point is that every now and then a new technology comes along that supplants and older one because it offers a meaningful improvement over the last. AI search vs traditional web search is definitely one of those.

[thfuran]

Even if that's true, the example definitely isn't proof of that given that the old technology seems to handle the problem just fine.

[revscat]

If they each give the correct answer in the same number of steps then there’s no reason to prefer one over the other.

[KMag]

My multiple experiences with ChatGPT hallucination, even at minimum temperature, leaves me preferring a web search answer. Just last week, jq hallucinated three different jq syntaxes that failed to parse.

That being said, I had been using web search for several years looking for the Get Smart episode I had seen as a kid in the 1980s where the enemy agent explains that he can't give up his suicide ring because "That's how it works, if I take it off, my wife will kill me." Google Bard found the episode on the first try.

So, I tend to fall back to LLMs only when search engines fail me.

[hn_version_0023]

Mental inertia is the phrase I use for preferring the one you learned first

[onlytime]

Power usage, latency, ethical concerns.

[pessimizer]

It's just as easy or easier to google "cyclist who robbed banks."

[redeux]

You’re not thinking through the whole experience. The search itself is just as easy, sure. You can type the same query into both systems. The difference is in the results. Traditional web search will then return a set of links which may or may not answer you query, it’s up you you to parse them and figure out if they have the content you need or if you need to rephrase your query and try again. AI on the other hand will parse the results for you and return the answer to your prompt directly. That’s a meaningful improvement.

[akira2501]

> AI on the other hand will parse the results for you and return the answer to your prompt directly.

Yep! And that's going to save you _one whole step_ when you're posting meaningless follow ups in forums filled with technical users who would have had no problem getting the information themselves.

> That’s a meaningful improvement.

It's a marginal improvement to the least meaningful activity that occurs on a daily basis. So, it's totally worth the trillions that have been invested in it. :|

[th0ma5]

If it is not 100% based in reality then no, it isn't.

[bongo1000]

Which is not the case here -- just simply "googling" would provide the right answer.