• snooggums@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago
    • narrowing down keywords for an unfamiliar topic
    • getting a quick intro to an unfamiliar topic
    • looking up facts you’re having trouble remembering (i.e. you’ll know it when you see it)

    I used to be able to use Google and other search engines to do these things before they went to shit in the pursuit of AI integration.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      Google search was pretty bad at each of those, even when it was good. Finding new keywords to use is especially difficult the more niche your area of search is, and I’ve spent hours trying different combinations until I found a handful of specific keywords that worked.

      Likewise, search is bad for getting a broad summary, unless someone has bothered to write it on a blog. But most information goes way too deep and you still need multiple sources to get there.

      Fact lookup is one the better uses for search, but again, I usually need to remember which source had what I wanted, whereas the LLM can usually pull it out for me.

      I use traditional search most of the time (usually DuckDuckGo), and LLMs if I think it’ll be more effective. We have some local models at work that I use, and they’re pretty helpful most of the time.

      • snooggums@lemmy.world
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        24 hours ago

        No search engine or AI will be great with vague descriptions of niche subjects because by definition niche subjects are too uncommon to have a common pattern of ‘close enough’.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          23 hours ago

          Which is why I use LLMs to generate keywords for niche subjects. LLMs are pretty good at throwing out a lot of related terminology, which I can use to find the actually relevant, niche information.

          I wouldn’t use one to learn about a niche subject, but I would use one to help me get familiar w/ the domain to find better resources to learn about it.