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33 pointslozf14 comments

I am seriously worried about AI being merged into search. Below you will see a very simple query I made to ChatGPT. Spoiler alert: the answer is wrong. There is a branch of Umpqua bank in Point Roberts. And there is no credit union. So instead of the correct answer, I get the sort of answer I would get from a friendly uncle who was determined to hide some ugly truth from me.

The worst part is that I see no evidence that this kind of wrongness will ever get better.

ChatGPT: You said: are there any banks in Point Roberts? ChatGPT said:

Point Roberts, Washington, is a unique community because it's located on a small peninsula that is part of the United States but accessible only by land through Canada. Due to its small size and unique geography, Point Roberts doesn't have many large-scale businesses, including full-service banks.

However, there are some options for banking in the area:

ATM Services: There are ATMs available in Point Roberts, which can be used for withdrawing cash, but they might not offer a wide range of services like in-person banking or loan assistance. Local Credit Union: There is a branch of the Point Roberts Credit Union. It's a smaller, community-oriented institution that offers some financial services, including savings accounts, loans, and other basic banking services. Nearby Banks in Blaine: For more extensive banking services (like branch access, larger ATM networks, etc.), many Point Roberts residents and visitors go across the border to Blaine, Washington, which is just a short drive away. Blaine has branches of major banks such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Bank. If you are looking for specific services, it might be best to contact the credit union or check with larger banks in nearby Blaine.

I do not know this region, but Google Maps says "Credit Union Central of British Columbia" is at 5506 12 Ave #7, Delta, BC V4M 4C3, Canada. It is three miles away from the Umpqua bank and mostly on the same road.

Living thousands of kilometers away, this bank looks to me to be located in Canada's part of the Point Roberts peninsula. So maybe ChatGPT was not so wrong?

Delta is in Canada (in the province of British Columbia). There is a border crossing between Delta and Point Roberts. This credit union is close to Point Roberts, but it is not in Point Roberts. I asked the question because I wanted to go to a US bank, not a Canadian one.

But you used ChatGPT, that is not a search mechanism or SearchGPT that is their search mechanism?

ChatGPT is know to not be a reliable for this type of search as it know to make up answers..

Between using Bing and now OpenAI, is DuckDuckGo just a middle man for using Microsoft products? I wish they would use their capital and resources to build a novel product. It seems their main selling point is they have my payment information instead of Microsoft.

Their main point has always been to be a condom between people and companies like Google, Microsoft, etc. Not just payment information, but other tracking and data as well. I think that's a fine niche for them to be in.

What products would you like to see them to build?

… search?

Look how much better Kagi’s results are, owed to them layering their own filtering and indexes on top of Google’s.

>… search?

Search alone doesn't seem to be very profitable. Look at how many different products Kagi is rolling out just to capture more paying users.

DDG would have to be create an even better search than Kagi. I don't think this is the obvious (or easy) way forward. It sounds expensive and risky.

There's definitely value in providing that anonymizing layer. People pay plenty for VPNs.

This IA chat does not have anything from Microsoft other then having the option to use ChatGPT model that is the same one Microsoft used to build Bing Chat..

But it offer several more models as options to choose from, some even open source and not related OpenIA..

FYI: can reach directly via https://duck.ai

DuckDuckGo's search page now offers "Anonymous access to popular AI models, including GPT-4o mini, Claude 3, and open-source Llama 3.1 and Mixtral."

Blog post (6 Jun 2024):

https://spreadprivacy.com/ai-chat/

(they updated some models since)

What's the business model for this?

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