Talking to Daniel today for the next podcast episode, about AI, and afterwards I was thinking about why I find ChatGPT so effective instead of Google search. It’s not just the “here’s the answer” but also the very fast, clean results. Imagine a web search with 5-10 results that was as simple.
@manton looking forward to the episode! For me it’s the forming of a thought that helps me most. I know vaguely what I’m looking for but not enough for a Google search, ChatGPT is great for that.
@manton I switched to Kagi and have been enjoying fast, clean results. My heuristic is still evolving, but chatbots are my preferred starting point when asking general knowledge questions. Kagi’s built-in one works well, automatically, and cites sources.
@manton I find much the same thing. ChatGPT can also take all the context that you give into account. You can refine it and it doesn’t give you Taylor Swift information if you’ve asked about Swift code previously.
The downside is that it gives you authoritative information that is completely false.
API usage related questions especially clearly tell you what you’ve got to do.. even if the API does not exist.. and especially if it ought to exist.
@frankreiff @manton For me, and for the questions I use it for, there is a big psychological upside to using ChatGPT: it presents a pretty damn good illusion of "hearing" the question I actually asked. It is such a relief to feel heard.
I do realize there is a huge potential downside to this for people who mistake a well-formed and appropriate answer for a reliable and correct answer.
@frankreiff @manton Also, it isn't just useful for things I don't know. It often saves me time and trouble around things I do know. I can understand artists when they say, "I don't want AI to be creative for me; I want it to do boring stuff for me so I have more time to be creative." As a programmer, I often find ChatGPT useful for precisely that. I don't mind sanity-checking the code it generates -- for me the tradeoff is worth it.
