Could this be turned into a business opportunity for someone to start a search engine prioritizing real websites that don’t sound like AI? It could carry some advertising or charge for a no-ads version. People would use it. What are the main obstacles that stop anyone doing this? Is it just this scale of the modern internet or the expense of training a model to downrank anything that smells like AI? Or is it that all the people who might provide initial funding are all-in on AI slop?
I mean that already exists. It’s called Kagi. But Google retains like 99% of the market because no one gives a shit and can’t be bothered to adjust their default settings.
Is Kagi really that much different? I used their free trial for a while and the results seemed similar to what I’m used to on Duck Duck Go, so I just went back to that. Maybe I should try it again.
The default experience depends on what you’re searching for, usually traditional search engines fall apart pretty quickly when it comes to anything related to a possible purchase, or more technical/esoteric info.
Tbf, one of Kagi’s killer features is its ability to up/down rank websites, which means you also need to spend some time customising it to your tastes. No more Pinterest, quora, medium, etc
The problem sites are never the big ones for me, it’s always the weird niche blogs that have the answer to my question that end up being obviously AI generated.
Could this be turned into a business opportunity for someone to start a search engine prioritizing real websites that don’t sound like AI? It could carry some advertising or charge for a no-ads version. People would use it. What are the main obstacles that stop anyone doing this? Is it just this scale of the modern internet or the expense of training a model to downrank anything that smells like AI? Or is it that all the people who might provide initial funding are all-in on AI slop?
I mean that already exists. It’s called Kagi. But Google retains like 99% of the market because no one gives a shit and can’t be bothered to adjust their default settings.
Is Kagi really that much different? I used their free trial for a while and the results seemed similar to what I’m used to on Duck Duck Go, so I just went back to that. Maybe I should try it again.
The default experience depends on what you’re searching for, usually traditional search engines fall apart pretty quickly when it comes to anything related to a possible purchase, or more technical/esoteric info.
Tbf, one of Kagi’s killer features is its ability to up/down rank websites, which means you also need to spend some time customising it to your tastes. No more Pinterest, quora, medium, etc
The problem sites are never the big ones for me, it’s always the weird niche blogs that have the answer to my question that end up being obviously AI generated.
Kagi also has SlopStop. Basically sponsorblock but for AI slop.
SlopStop | Kagi’s Docs - https://help.kagi.com/kagi/features/slopstop.html
I mean regardless of how different it is, it’s exactly what you described in intention.