You don't want search and information extraction to be powered by a certain algorithm that is measurably better at this than other algorithms?
Is it okay that this product uses timsort or you're only ok with quicksort?
A diversity of viewpoints is healthy for discussion, and diversity yeilds a healthy and robust eco-system.
Not all of us drink deep of the Kool-"AI"d. So far it's main application appears to be give marketing something to annoy the snot out out you with.
Grug Notes is good case of applying LLMs — organizing information — which is far superior than previous algorithms (try extracting entities with regexps or previous NLP models). It also doesn't really do over-the-top BS advertising of its AI features. But no, let's dismiss it because "AI".
There's the whole thread of comments, but so far there's not a single comment (including yours!) explaining their point of view apart from "I don't like AI", "I don't like AI marketing", "I think it would be slow because I see 'AI'" or "this part of the software was not made by or is run by the same person who made the software".
Reminder an algorithm is a finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions, which is why we can in fact meaningfully talk about the performance of timsort or quicksort. Not only is "Grug AI" not measurably better, it isn't even measurable in the first place. Not just to me, but not even to the guy who runs the website.
In a note taking system it seems quite natural that one wants precision, transparency and full control and not use a technology that by design cannot accurately distinguish what even exists in my notes in the first place and what doesn't.
Furthermore, the original "grug developer brain" essay argued about reducing complexity. Despite the name, slapping AI on a simple note taking editor makes it very non-grug.
As for third-party: almost everything is third-party online. I agree with that if you don't want to use software using third party services (be it AWS/GCloud or OpenAI), you shouldn't use it (I don't, I keep my notes locally). But that's now what the comment said.
Notes are personal. I don't want my notes online at all, let alone being feed into a language model likely managed by a third party that feeds them into it.
"It's AI" is the new "someone else does it", just like "the cloud" was yesteryear's.
PS In reference to running AI locally: for my own (non-online) app (Calcish) I specifically waited to introduce AI until local modals become usable, as I didn't want to just add APIs and be done with it — it happened and now the app provides a choice.
Local AI in browsers is something that's Chrome working on (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40834600) — I think it can already be adapted for Grug Notes use cases.
Same with semantic search.
I keep my notes in text files. But I understand that LLMs are better for powering the features Grug Notes provides than other algorithms, even if they are non-deterministic.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work.
The GP was clear at what they don't want.
Using the following words for simplicity, not to be inflammatory;
It typically amounts to "AI stinky" or "I don't want big brother to have my data"
I consider "AI stinky" variants invalid because this is one of many software development paradigms. simply because the market is overhyped, it doesn't mean that all applications are automatically useless.
"big brother" fails to consider the incremental big-brotherness. we, when using tools like this, expose our data already. The incremental risk from an LLM provider seems small.