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I'm fairly sure it can be a useful part of a web search application. There are things it could aid in: summary, evaluation of results, and probably many other things I can't imagine. It's got some use. But I'm not at all sure an LLM could wholly replace search engines, as some of the headlines are proclaiming. I think if you just took the excitement in the median news article and dialed it back about half a turn, that's probably where we'll end up.

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Agreed, we’ve been here before, repeatedly, over the past few years:

- The Metaverse was going to change the internet.

- The Internet of things was going to revolutionise our homes and cities.

- Self-driving cars would change the motor industry.

- Crypto is the next big thing in finance.

- NFTs are going to revolutionise digital ownership.

Most of those technologies have introduced niche or useful applications, but the ridiculous, breathless hype about how this technology is the one to change everything is getting more predictable and increasingly frustrating.

100% this. The hype around ChatGPT is insane, and it's a really safe bet that 90% of the things being claimed about it are absurdly exaggerated. At the same time, it's a really safe bet that everyone saying this technology is worthless is equally incorrect.

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