ChatGPT is also becoming a victim of SEO. Not purely at the crawling level, but also at the answer level.

But as a default, it gives mostly "SEO-optimized" answers in a SEO-optimized format. Even simple question are answered with bullet points. Some descriptions look like advertisements and it's all very authoritative, even when it's just bullshitting/guessing and doesn't really know the answer for sure. This is what I was escaping from.

EDIT: For example the last thing I asked was how Brendan O'Brien did sample replacement in drums in Blood Sugar Sex Magic. It answered something that was 90% plausible but most of the content was walls and walls of text about the equipment it assumed it was used (plus info on more equipment unrelated to sample replacement), rather than actually answering the question itself.

I don’t know why this is getting downvoted. It might be unpopular to use or like ChatGPT among the users of HN but - it’s true, this is one of the quickest ways to get answers for something

Answers, sure. Bit you'll never know if those are answers, bullshit, trolling, or straight up hallucinations. So no, it's not an option at all.

You write this as if that is substantially different from common epistemology of the first page of links.

I’m not an llm advocate but responses like this bring to mind the “no wireless. Less storage than a nomad. Lame” reaction to the iPod.

No idea what this means

> you'll never know if those are answers, bullshit, trolling, or straight up hallucinations

That's how it has always been for purely human-generated content, too.

Exactly. This seems to be one of the skills we need to learn. In the same way we have to use our own intelligence and skills when searching google (Is this source website reputable? What’s the context I’m searching in? Do I know this person / company? Does that result sound likely? Can I compare to other answers to see if it makes sense?) - it seems to me that using ChatGPT to do anything requires a similar set of (slightly cynical / take what you read with a pinch of salt / check your facts - but nonetheless understand that this is a useful tool) type response to it.

Kagi works great.

Great is a loaded term. They promote "best headphones" on their home page.

3rd organic link is a 404. And the rest of the links are either not timely e.g. from 2016 or niche e.g. for Telehealth.

Also it is not location aware so mention of Bestbuy even when not from US.