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shanoshamanizum OP t1_j6n33vs wrote

Reply to comment by TiredOldLamb in Why AI can not replace search index by shanoshamanizum

Because a search engine is supposed to return all results while AI will aim for an answer first and foremost.

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ibDABIN t1_j6n6apk wrote

But if the answer is to return a list of information, how does this not fit the bill? I've used ChatGPT as a search engine for like a week now and while it isn't always great on the first response, it almost always gives me a synopsis of Google's top results and I can easily pivot on scope with a follow up.

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shanoshamanizum OP t1_j6n6i1r wrote

Can you elaborate further on your experience? Does it produce the same results? Where does it get the index from?

If I do a search with perplexity.ai and then google perpelexity gives me an answer and references not search results.

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ibDABIN t1_j6nxjie wrote

Well, my experience is admittedly limited as I've only used it where I work since the beginning of last week. I have only double checked Google's top results a couple of times to see the content of the results vs what I received from ChatGPT but it was largely the same. Granted, these instances were code requests where I was asking for methods to do a certain thing using different namespaces.

Whenever I have asked ChatGPT for suggestions or a list of ideas, it always obliges and gives me a lengthy, bulleted list. It is unable to provide links but it seems to bypass that need by extrapolating the information from top results.

It certainly can't replace Google now due to dataset limitations but since I've started using ChatGPT, my feelings have remained the same regarding it's use case. It feels and behaves like a more intuitive search engine and I could absolutely see it replacing search engines in the future. There isn't really a need for a collection of URLs when you can skip that step and immediately get the content you are looking for without the browsing.

Could my opinion change with further use? For sure. I am really only using it for mundane coding at the moment.

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