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1. Rusty Crab (rustycrab@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:43 JST Rusty Crab
   As a research tool, I've discovered that you should be viewing LLMs less like an oracle and more like a metal detector. You're in a vast ocean of garbage that is the internet and LLMs are not going to be able to tell you exactly what to do or exactly where to dig to find your perfect artifact. They'll get you really close to it, though, and that beats the hell out of excavating the entire landscape for weeks.
   • FrailLeaf (frailleaf@ryona.agency)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:33 JST FrailLeaf

     in reply to
     @RustyCrab i don't remember actually 2014 was like my 2nd year on the internet kek
     Machismo likes this.
   • Rusty Crab (rustycrab@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:34 JST Rusty Crab

     in reply to

     • FrailLeaf
     @FrailLeaf did you get to experience google in 2014? It was incredible. Answered any question you had instantly. That's how google got to be the top tech company in the world. Their product is embarrassing compared to what it was 10 years ago.
   • Rusty Crab (rustycrab@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:35 JST Rusty Crab

     in reply to

     • FrailLeaf
     @FrailLeaf kagi is excellent. I don't have a single complaint. I've been using it for months and I simply have no need for google anymore outside of the occasional morbid curiosity of the distorted results they serve for certain questions.
     
     Outside of their AI stuff, their raw search results are better than google because they lack paid inflated page rank scores. They don't go back to the level of 2014 search (which was the pinnacle of technology) but they are strictly an upgrade from google. Like I said though their quick answer stuff is something that google completely lacks and saves me multiple hours per day in research.
   • FrailLeaf (frailleaf@ryona.agency)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:35 JST FrailLeaf

     in reply to
     @RustyCrab alright i'll get the $10 thing and try it out, about to start new project at work and should be a good way to test it out.
     
     >They don't go back to the level of 2014 search (which was the pinnacle of technology)
     why do you say that
   • FrailLeaf (frailleaf@ryona.agency)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:36 JST FrailLeaf

     in reply to
     @RustyCrab I see, how would you rate your search experience compared to google on kagi?
     
     Also when you just said LLMs i thought you literally just would talk to some hosted LLM, which is going to be bad, but i think these guys are doing a lot before serving results
   • Rusty Crab (rustycrab@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:37 JST Rusty Crab

     in reply to

     • FrailLeaf
     @FrailLeaf it's a paid service but you can sign up for a trial to use quick answer https://kagi.com
   • Rusty Crab (rustycrab@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:38 JST Rusty Crab

     in reply to

     • FrailLeaf
     @FrailLeaf operators don't really work on google anymore (eg: quotes) unless you're talking about something as basic as filtering sites.
     
     And yes, all LLMs can do is gather consensus from internet idiots. If you have access to a real expert, that's always better.
     
     As for what model I am using, Kagi offers a few services. There are gpt 3-4 proxies as well as Claude. They have a service called "quick answer" which is stunningly accurate and I've gotten to where I just click it by default instead of sifting through results. I don't know what model that is but it blows everything else out of the water.
   • FrailLeaf (frailleaf@ryona.agency)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:38 JST FrailLeaf

     in reply to
     @RustyCrab link me, i want to try this
   • FrailLeaf (frailleaf@ryona.agency)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:39 JST FrailLeaf

     in reply to
     @RustyCrab
     > that's why you look up the user ratings first.
     ref: http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/bullschildt.html
     ref: https://www.seebs.net/c/c_tcn4e.html
     ref: also picrel
     
     thing is, user reviews are just as good as the user himself. This particular example shows you just how bad it can be. I would always suggest approaching people who have sufficient knowledge with the tool over only just depending on user reviews.
     
     That said, I didn't ask you what LLM you were using, is it a local model that keeps updating or is it that openAI mdoels?
     
     Yeah google results are going to be flooded with unrelated topics, but then you can use operators to filter results.
     image.png
     image.png
   • Rusty Crab (rustycrab@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:40 JST Rusty Crab

     in reply to

     • FrailLeaf
     @FrailLeaf I run into multiple examples per day where queries give wildly unrelated results to what I searched for on both google and kagi. Consulting an LLM via kagi almost always gives me alternative links that end up being useful to the topic. If you use modern google for anything you should be well aware that many queries return total nonsense that wasn't even related to what you asked as the top results.
     
     As for your example: that's why you look up the user ratings first.
   • FrailLeaf (frailleaf@ryona.agency)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:41 JST FrailLeaf

     in reply to
     @RustyCrab do you have an example conversation? I understand this, but imagine that you asked for "recommend best books for learning programming" and then it gave you top 5 worst books ever, and you wouldn't know until you actually start programming and realise just how mediocre the books were
   • Rusty Crab (rustycrab@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:42 JST Rusty Crab

     in reply to

     • FrailLeaf
     @FrailLeaf even when it lies it can often give you keywords to search for that you had no idea about. You just should never take its instructions without verifying first.
   • FrailLeaf (frailleaf@ryona.agency)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 02:08:43 JST FrailLeaf

     in reply to
     @RustyCrab that isn't always the case anyway, it can lie confidently and that makes googling more easier
   • Rusty Crab (rustycrab@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 03:39:26 JST Rusty Crab

     in reply to

     • FrailLeaf
     • Fantasia
     @fantasia @FrailLeaf ddg is horrific. I've done a lot of cross referencing tests and google passes most of them, kagi passes most of them at a higher rate, brave search passes most of them (slightly less than google) and duckduckgo just eats shit. If you're looking to get away from google for free you should check brave search.
     
     I hear people have good results with bing but its interface makes me want to shoot myself
   • mia (mia@freespeechextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 03:39:26 JST mia

     in reply to

     • FrailLeaf
     • Fantasia
     @RustyCrab @fantasia @FrailLeaf
     
     the real ddg approach was using bangs to search on other sites anyway.
     Machismo likes this.
   • Fantasia (fantasia@clubcyberia.co)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Nov-2023 03:39:31 JST Fantasia

     in reply to

     • FrailLeaf
     @RustyCrab @FrailLeaf
     > operators don't really work on google anymore
     They still do, it's just that it mixes results without the operator in them
     
     Yes, I have heard good things about Kagi. Too broke to pay for a search engine though and Duckduckgo and Google are still good enough for me.