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points by tokioyoyo 2 days ago | 0 comments

> I know many people are increasingly frustrated with Google

I’m not sure if this holds true nowadays. I’d say it git pretty bad, but now Gemini summary pretty much covers all of my use cases. And for any meaningful query, it’s straight to ChatGPT/Claude.

[–] mcmcmc 2 days ago

Gemini summary is wrong way too often to be relied on, especially for anything niche

[–] tokioyoyo 2 days ago

Very rare for me to use Google nowadays for something niche. For those cases, I would assume it requires multiple sources to get a definitive answer, so it goes to ChatGPT.

[–] mcmcmc 2 days ago

Ok but there’s still a high error rate, so why would you trust it with general queries? Especially if it’s something you aren’t already knowledgeable about

[–] fesoliveira 2 days ago

That is fair. I always ask for sources whenever it is something I am unfamiliar with instead of just trusting the response, that way I can go and double check and it ensures the agent at least read something on the topic

[–] InvertedRhodium 2 days ago

I've found the value of this approach has diminished over time - now I need to go and read the source and try to identify if it was generated by an LLM itself.

[–] tokioyoyo 2 days ago

Why do you think there’s a high error rate for general queries nowadays?

[–] mcmcmc 2 days ago

Because of the high error rate on queries where I know the topic well enough to tell when the answer is way off base

[–] tokioyoyo 2 days ago

Yeah fair. I guess I have a very different experience, as I mentioned above, I basically never use it for any niche/hard queries that depend on multiple sources or research. For all my common queries, it's reliable.

[–] mcmcmc 2 days ago

> For all my common queries, it's reliable.

Is it though? How often are you spot checking sources?

[–] devmor 2 days ago

Every time I get a Gemini summary it reminds me not to use google. It's almost always wrong about key data.

[–] holdupagain 2 days ago

It's a AI answer and a huge page of ads

[–] tokioyoyo 2 days ago

Yeah, agreed. If Claude/ChatGPT would load and respond faster, i’d go for them. But Google’s speed is unmatched for quick queries.

[–] hedora 2 days ago

For me, it took 30-60 seconds to notice dark mode preferences on my browser, but popped up an ad saying that search is garbage without the app, and that I should install their malware on my phone.

When I dismissed the popup, it produced much better results than screenshots I’ve seen from logged in browsers.

I guess that’s an improvement?

[–] FrinkleFrankle 2 days ago

I use it much less than I did prior to LLM becoming useful. However, when I need to search, it just works. Their AI integration with their search is also great, but I couldn't justify it and ChatGPT subscription. I can't bring myself to cancel Kagi entirely, though. I still did 600 searches this month.

[–] 0c3ca83 2 days ago

Except the summary doesn't fucking work. It's consistently wrong.

[–] tokioyoyo 2 days ago

As I mentioned above, if you’re making a niche query, maybe. If you’re making a very generic query “average temperature in Hong Kong in January”, it’s fine. You’re overestimating average complexity of a query.

[–] xp84 2 days ago

"Fine" may be "right 95% of the time" but I'll look like a jackass 5% of the time that I trust the Google AI Overview.

And I won't know which ones are the wrong ones, so I may as well trust it 0% of the time.

Most people I know use AI Overview now as their primary way of doing any sort of research or question-answering... and I urge them: If getting an LLM take is suitable for your purpose, at least ask free-tier ChatGPT, which is at least an order of magnitude less likely to vomit up false or confused information. Also, asking actual Gemini is another sane option that is far superior to AI Overview.

[–] augment_me 2 days ago

Does it really matter that much? Did it matter that everyone's parents pre-internet were wrong half of the time?

Most people are not asking google to build them a train signaling system but to look up some question on Wikipedia for which the answer does not matter that much

[–] hedora 2 days ago

If that’s the case, those people should just install a 7M param model on their phones and use that. It’s probably as accurate, but works offline.

[–] augment_me 2 days ago

Sure but that is harder than pressing a button or saying hey Google. It requires you to think, install a new app, make a UI, etc.

Think of the incentives and the path of absolute least resistance/thinking/energy use and you will arrive at the product people want.

[–] hedora 1 day ago

I think you can press a button + say "Hey Siri" at this point (though that assumes Siri works at all, which I agree is a stretch.)

[–] tokioyoyo 2 days ago

7M param doesn’t do web searches for you. Otherwise, yeah?

[–] hedora 1 day ago

7M is fine if you don't care about the quality/correctness of the output and just want some utterance that looks plausibly related to the question. I guess that is the bar this thread has set for Google search quality being good enough for most users.

[–] fao_ 1 day ago

> Does it really matter that much?

Does truth matter in the post-truth world where disclaiming truthful news about you is as easy as calling it fake?

[–] ksh09 2 days ago

Interesting, I had terrible experience with ChatGPT as search not-so while back, found gemini quite useful for finding out the articles and brainstorming information.

[–] windexh8er 2 days ago

> And for any meaningful query, it’s straight to ChatGPT/Claude.

What a disgusting use of technology. Kicking a query to an agent, that's leveraging a model that has bulk of humanities information in it, so it can use a web browser to go looking for the thing you searched. WTF.

[–] xp84 2 days ago

As opposed to Googling, which will

1. leverage the AI Overview model (with the IQ of a brain-damaged monkey),

2. run an ad auction and populate the first 6-10 items from that,

3. then do a perfunctory exercise of searching its spam-riddled index to round out a few results at the very bottom of the page.

Yeah, that guy asking ChatGPT is a monster.

[–] hedora 2 days ago

You forgot to mention all the well-documented ad auction fraud that came out during the anti-trust trial (they defraud advertisers and sites and do some shady stuff to users —- on every impression).