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Comment by ceheaaf | Hacker News Reader

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As its traffic continues to climb, alternative search engine DuckDuckGo is leaning into anti-AI sentiment with the launch of new browser extensions that allow users to set its no-AI search experience, noai.duckduckgo.com, as their default search engine.

First 'graph of TFA.

The specific URL "noai.duckduckgo.com" omits any AI summaries, generators, chats, or prompts, as advertised.

The unqualified page, www.duckduckgo.com, does include AI features at present. But that's not what's being claimed.

Amazing to place this level of disdain into a comment that is so completely incorrect

"AI is not the default" is not a claim made anywhere AFAICT, especially not with that wording. The only thing you could be referring to is the explicitly no-ai url, which AFAICT has no "Auto-Generated" "Search Assist" (that's kinda the point), and it also hasn't used that phrase ever that I've seen in months.

So I kinda feel I have to ask: did you read the article, or did you read an AI summary?

Replace journalism with AI summaries... of what?

What is the AI going to summarize once journalism is dead?

Press releases, which is what too much of what we call ‘journalism’ summarises anyway.

Step 1: read the article. Step 2 (optional): comment on the article.

You're doing these in the wrong order.

You should explain why, otherwise you risk becoming part of the problem.

Why in general? Because if you don't read the article, you run a strong risk of reacting to things that the article didn't actually say. See OP for a good example.

Why this OP specifically? Because he is strongly reacting to the article's claim that "Ai is not the default" ... which is not stated or implied by the article he's replying to.

The article is a useful bulletin that DDG has a "no AI" function, previously accessible via a URL and now through extensions as well. OP is acting like DDG is claiming to be an anti-AI company, based on nothing stated in the article.

It's just that people have different understanding of the world and assuming something is self evident is dangerous. For instance the problem here is the apparent disconnection between the comment and the article, but maybe it's just that the connection isn't evident to you.

Take this response to a comment of mine for instance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48144461. I've read the article and someone thought I didn't because he didn't see the connection I saw and acted all righteously, almost as this threads OP.

So in order to avoid embarrassing yourself online it's always nice to first give people the benefit of the doubt and then avoid being sneaky and clever when communication what you want.

I don't owe the benefit of the doubt to a comment that says "this is just marketing" and "are people this stupid?". If OP is going to make dismissive, vitriolic comments like that, he should probably make sure that the article is actually saying anything like what he claims.

Fair point

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48362218>

You should explain the problem, otherwise you risk becoming part of the same problem.

Surely there is a problem in OPs mind that prompted him to write this message so why should I explain it when op already knows it?

Edit: I know how to turn off the goddamn AI that’s not the point

I've used DDG as my primary search and it was maddening when they put that stupid AI response thing in there last year because it was not helpful and I'm a huge advocate of AI

Everything is marketing now

Just use http://noai.duckduckgo.com/, which is mentioned in TFA.

You missed the whole point of my comment. Long time DDG users have had to deal with their dumb AI for a year now

Everyone is aware of this new marketing URL now

Been a DDG user for about a decade, ever since I stopped using Google search.

Click the gear on the Search Assist box, and click the bottom option that says "Never". Right beneath it, it says: "Completely disables Search Assist".

It's always been easy to avoid DDG's AI, which was the point of my comment.

I'm not sure why you refer to the useful noai URL as a "marketing" URL.

There is a very prominent "show always / show on demand / disable completely" button, which you can choose and is respected indefinitely from that point on. That's orders of magnitude better than anything else, and really the best you can do short of refusing to use any AI at all.

You can turn that all off in a few clicks and I believe it is kept in your site cookie so you don't need to log in

https://duckduckgo.com/settings#aifeatures

> So, the "Ai is not the default" claim is bullshit

Where was this claim made? Nowhere in the article says that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com