• Doug Holland@lemmy.worldEnglish
    24·
    5 days ago

    After completing the survey, and of course wanting NO AI, DuckDuckGo of course suggested using their “no AI” search engine, bragging that “We’ve Turned Off AI‑Assisted Answers” and “We’ve Removed AI‑Generated Images.” The #2 result on my first rather bland search was Grokipedia.

    • machiavellian@lemmy.ml
      10·
      5 days ago

      I just had the same experience. The amount of effort it takes to act ethically and stay away from literal stinking piles of toxic waste every time you need to use the computer for anything is insane. Most common browser - AI, search engine - AI, messaging app - AI, phone - AI, TV - AI. And I use the term “AI” quite liberally here at best meaning machine learning and at worst a LLM.

  • EtherWhack@lemmy.world
    36·
    6 days ago

    Took them a while. (Probably after countless feedback submissions criticizing it)

    Them having it enabled by default actually made me switch off of them. I’m Trying out startpage currently and it doesn’t seem terribly bad.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
    71·
    6 days ago

    There are times and places I think AI is or would be kind of useful. But every company being like “Yes AI by default!!! Haha no you can’t turn it off” means that I would rather just have No AI, if I can’t have “No AI, but a way to access AI when I would like to”.

  • cecilkorik@piefed.caEnglish
    412·
    5 days ago

    I like the part where we’re now pretending they’re “pushing back” on forced AI almost a full year after implementing default, forced AI.

    Where was this “norm” a year ago? Did the AI implement itself into DDG’s main page by accident? Were they hacked? /s

    It’s fine that they made a mistake including default AI. But it’s long overdue for them to admit that, and have some accountability, and maybe provide an apology, and an explanation. Instead, we get this milquetoast “Some people like it, some people don’t, we weren’t wrong it must’ve been you guys who changed your minds, but we’re the good guys here, because now we’re asking you!” gaslighting.

    With all due respect, fuck you, duckduckgo.

  • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world
    792·
    5 days ago

    …and you posted a picture of a tweet, instead of something with an actual link. I do not understand. I really. Really don’t.

  • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
    312·
    6 days ago

    Personally, I think search engines are one of the only use cases I can think of where AI could be genuinely useful one day. Especially if it is capable of cutting through the SEO and generative AI slop that currently ruins most search results.

    • Luci@lemmy.caEnglish
      10·
      6 days ago

      I’m not happy with the sources the AI “mode” gives me

      A 7 year old Reddit thread with misinformation but a tonne of upvotes is often the source

  • TrickDacy@lemmy.worldM
    7·
    6 days ago

    This is cool. I’d also be interested what people’s primary reason for voting the way they did is. I think for me it’s an environmental thing. I could get used to ignoring ai results at the top, but knowing those use so much electricity to also serve me something I rarely find useful is gross.

    • EtherWhack@lemmy.world
      4·
      5 days ago

      For me, it’s an efficiency/reliability standpoint. As when I’m searching, I’m looking for what I want, not what something thinks I want. Also, once you learn of the switches and how to phrase a query, you generally can get what you are looking for (if it even exists) within the first few results.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      24·
      5 days ago

      Huh, if you select “No” it gives you an option to go to an alternate DDG homepage “noai.duckduckgo.com”. But it looks like if you just go to their normal homepage, they’ve got a link to DuckAI at the top, searching for images defaults to including AI images, and they have a Search Assist that uses AI as well.

      So even though the overwhelming majority of their users have responded “No AI”, they’re still defaulting everyone to the “Yes AI” experience unless you use an alternate URL. That’s kind of shitty. I mean at least they have a “no” option, but seems like it should be the default.

      • Black616Angel@discuss.tchncs.de
        13·
        5 days ago

        First of all, the vote is from last week, so no measures have been taken yet. The vote is still live.

        Secondly I think it was more of an ad for their AI, that backfired, because if I remember correctly, the “no” answer didn’t provide the link to noai.duckduckgo.com when I first answered.

        Lastly, I hope that this does change some minds in their C-suite. Having no AI as a standard would be a good start, but them filtering AI images is actually a bonus. This should be expanded upon.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
    265·
    6 days ago

    I find the Kagi implementation interesting. You will only get AI results if you end your query with “?”.

    “How do I make cornbread” = search results for cornbread recipes.

    “How do I make cornbread?” = AI generated recipe response.

  • Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    6 days ago

    Pro tips: just had the word “wiki” to the subject you are trying to learn about in the search bar and, tada, you get access to reliable information, super detailled, well written and with multiple sources cited. This thing is gonna be an AI killer.

    • hector@lemmy.today
      3·
      5 days ago

      That might be a good tip. Wikipedia however is not reliable on a great many issues. Any issue where monied interests have a stake in fact. Even history is now being revised by axe grinders. Wikipedia is great, but it’s not a reliable source for a great many issues, and real hit or miss otherwise.

      Some subjects might have a great result, the next in the same category might not, one might be writtin in plain english and the next written in technical words making the result worthless to everyone unfamiliar with the nomenclature.