this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I've refused to indulge in using them for searching. Do they cite their sources now? All I've seen are screenshots where it appears you're just supposed to take their word for it. Curious if that's changed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Bing Chat has become my go-to search engine for situations where I'm not looking for a specific website or other such resource, and instead want some kind of information or knowledge. I'd recommend giving it a shot. It does a websearch in the background, puts the results into its hidden context, and then builds an answer for you based on the information it dredged up, complete with links. You can then clarify your question or ask for further details and get a back-and-forth going, it's really handy. I'd recommend giving it a shot, I believe it works without needing an account now.

Oh, I should note: don't use it like an old-school search engine where you just type a couple of keywords in. Be conversational and give context to your search. Say for example "I'm planting a garden in Witchita, Kansas. What climate zone is it, and what sorts of flowers grow well there?" And then perhaps follow that with "Are any of those attractive to hummingbirds?" Or whatever. That should help it figure out what information to look for and how to distill what you want to know from it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Some like Phind or Perplexity cite their sources. And they give you directly the answer you're looking for without having to search it in a mess of "subscribe to our newsletter", "other articles that may interest you", 3 paragraphs of "if you read this article, you will know what you want to know", "special promotion for you",…

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I may grudgingly try it then. lol Though I've gotten quite good at filtering out the chaff from search results.