[LINK] Duck's AI-assisted searches

[David]

Linkers may be interested in the careful way DuckDuckGo is integrating AI-assisted searches in their search engine - see https://spreadprivacy.com/ai-feature-upgrade/  This is a longish article, but worth reading IMO.

> Recent updates to AI-assisted answers include expanding sources across the web, beyond just Wikipedia; answering English-language queries outside the U.S.; and adding customization that lets you decide how often you want answers to appear: often, sometimes (default), on-demand, or never

In particular, I note that AI-assisted searches were initially limited to Wikipedia, assessed as a "reliable" source.  Another OpenSource engine known as Marginalia from a Swedish developer - https://marginalia-search.com/ - prioritises searches from non-commercial sources and users can even restrict them to Academia.

It will be interesting to see if these developments mark fragmentation of the 'net into reliable sources of information and what used to be called the "yellow press".

That's just another facet of its' evolution noted elsewhere recently: early Internet searches returned such good results because most sources _were_ in fact responsibly written, factual, and in many cases came from Academia.  But the 'net is now full of opinions, propaganda, advertising, and common-or-garden rubbish which introduces noise into AI's factor correlations.

_David Lochrin_