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Comment by ipdashc | Hacker News Reader

Sure, I've done this for more complicated questions and sometimes it reveals flaws. But I don't use Google for anything complicated. Generally it's just to get a quick vague definition of a term, pretty much.

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is that functionally different than just using the search field in dictionary.com? I guess I'm just not seeing what the point of using Gemini is over a much more efficient feature that already exists

Sorry, I misspoke there. I do occasionally use it for outright word definitions (and in that case I find it more useful than, say, dictionary.com because my search bar defaults to it, it usually defaults to the most common definition, and it puts it in more easily-readable terms) but I more so meant that I'll use it for quick inquiries, often just to get a sense of what a thing is. For instance, some random recent searches:

  - cloudflare workers free tier
  - tubular lock
  - hasl finish
  - js null coalesce

For all of these it gives a perfectly acceptable result. So does the top search result, and if I want more info I'll click through to it, but it does the job of a summary just fine.

I'm not saying it's the best thing in the world, I'm just generally surprised by the amount of people that seem to hate it. It seems to do its job fine for me.

yeah, I think some of the vitriol is well-meaning but misplaced. when I think about the externalized costs (pollution, energy use, water use, rare earth mining, data center buildouts, etc) I think it's worthwhile to remain critical but people like to extend it, in their black and white thinking, as multi-categorical failures. for basic questions it's serviceable (though the number of responses that cite just Youtube videos means my skepticism for its output validity remains)

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