I find Perplexity the best for actually looking up things and finding answers. It‘s a search engine with an attached LLM, summarising what the search engine found. As LLMs don’t actually know facts (it’s just a giant word completion machine guessing which letter most likely comes next) using them for knowledge is a dangerous game.
I've not heard of Perplexity. I'll have a look. At least most of the AI linked references now really exist, rather than imaginary articles and journal titles.
Yep. I found an excellent and very readable description of the Battle of Yarmuk in a link at the bottom of a wiki article. I have a lot of other resources, 9th century accounts etc, but this one had the best diagrams with play-by-play. And it all lined up with what I already knew. Whew. Gotta keep digging.
Despite the predictable mewling from you know who, I actually think using ChatGPT et al. for research is easily the least objectionable thing about them. It's a more efficient version of using Google. I actually found them very helpful when it comes to writing papers for my (Indonesian) law classes. So far, they've been very helpful with wading through the behemoths that are the Criminal and Civil Codes of the country. Fun fact: we don't actually have an official Indonesian version of our criminal and civil codes because they're originally written in Dutch, it's why probably the government recently passed a new Criminal Code which is due to take effect next year (I think).
Meanwhile, Google search has significantly downgraded. I was looking for a famous painting last night and in Google/images had to scroll thousands of cheap print sites/ads for it and knock-offs before I could find a link to the museum holding it. I didn't ask an AI to find it for me. I should do that. Would be a good experiment.
On law: my most recent day-job life was legal adjacent. I think paralegals are going to have to quickly rethink their career paths due to AI threat. So much research and reading and copy/past. Yikes, but forewarned is forearmed.
Didn't know that about Indonesian law. Glad I didn't have to find out while I was there. LOL!
Indonesia is advancing quickly. I'm sure we would not recognize it now.
I didn't mention Google in my initial comment, but that was on my mind too. It's so bad now for a lot of reasons which one can write a whole essay about.
As for finding specific sources, it might work. Though I think using the robot is best when you really know nothing about the topic. Yesterday, I had the robot search for things pertaining to Islamic Law which is even more confusing for me. With Indonesian Law in general, it's actually based on the Napoleonic Code (sort of), so I have something to go on with. But with Islamic Law, it's all Arabic to me. So the robot was really helpful with finding sources from Muslim writers (laymen and academic) and finding Surahs and stuff, and putting them all together in a coherent way. Also, the Quran is yet another behemoth which I wouldn't even know where to start; contrary to popular belief is not 'the Bible but Muslim', crack open the Book of Genesis and then crack open the first few pages of the Quran and you'll know what I'm talking about. But I digress, lol.
I can sort of see it as an addition to a search engine, but I just can't let myself do it. I enjoy the process of research especially when it takes me down unexpected rabbit holes.
I like finding an obscure reference to something and then checking out that source and then seeing where it takes me. I know it's not the most efficient method, but I enjoy learning more as I find new information. I don't want a LLM to guide me in this.
For those of us writing historical fiction, it makes little sense to not want to walk around in our time period soaking it in through our skin. I mean, not exactly the most lucrative endeavor. Better love it! I'm glad I have 12 years of non-AI research behind me. Otherwise, I wouldn't recognize all the bloopers these systems create. The "real" research is already full of contradictions enough. But I do want to get this project DONE. So, I'm risking some AI searches for some last minute details, in case they can give me something interesting that I can confirm. But just sending me to a Wiki isn't much of an improvement.
I experimented with using it for research as well and had the same result. Even when I asked it for references on a topic, it managed to swap authors and titles or invent books! Maybe it's better now. But it worries me how eager some people are to hand over our society to these things when they can't even manage some very basic processes.
A minefield, for certain. My first efforts were similar. I got very excited to see a long list of perfect-sounding articles, complete with recognizable authors and publications, only to discover none of them existed. Crushing. Hah. Now many of the references are from Gemini are legit, but they're just Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica. Meh. In troubleshooting some printmaking problems, Grok has pointed me to several good websites that I hadn't yet found myself. So the future of SEO is fuzzy too.
Getting very much that experience with some doctoral candidates I'm assisting. They try to use AI for references, but most of them end up being plausible sounding hallucinations. And the students have to pay my billing rate to weed them out.
I find Perplexity the best for actually looking up things and finding answers. It‘s a search engine with an attached LLM, summarising what the search engine found. As LLMs don’t actually know facts (it’s just a giant word completion machine guessing which letter most likely comes next) using them for knowledge is a dangerous game.
I've not heard of Perplexity. I'll have a look. At least most of the AI linked references now really exist, rather than imaginary articles and journal titles.
Yes! Like Wikipedia as a finding aid, the summary is indifferent but the cited sources can be gold.
Yep. I found an excellent and very readable description of the Battle of Yarmuk in a link at the bottom of a wiki article. I have a lot of other resources, 9th century accounts etc, but this one had the best diagrams with play-by-play. And it all lined up with what I already knew. Whew. Gotta keep digging.
Despite the predictable mewling from you know who, I actually think using ChatGPT et al. for research is easily the least objectionable thing about them. It's a more efficient version of using Google. I actually found them very helpful when it comes to writing papers for my (Indonesian) law classes. So far, they've been very helpful with wading through the behemoths that are the Criminal and Civil Codes of the country. Fun fact: we don't actually have an official Indonesian version of our criminal and civil codes because they're originally written in Dutch, it's why probably the government recently passed a new Criminal Code which is due to take effect next year (I think).
Meanwhile, Google search has significantly downgraded. I was looking for a famous painting last night and in Google/images had to scroll thousands of cheap print sites/ads for it and knock-offs before I could find a link to the museum holding it. I didn't ask an AI to find it for me. I should do that. Would be a good experiment.
On law: my most recent day-job life was legal adjacent. I think paralegals are going to have to quickly rethink their career paths due to AI threat. So much research and reading and copy/past. Yikes, but forewarned is forearmed.
Didn't know that about Indonesian law. Glad I didn't have to find out while I was there. LOL!
Indonesia is advancing quickly. I'm sure we would not recognize it now.
I didn't mention Google in my initial comment, but that was on my mind too. It's so bad now for a lot of reasons which one can write a whole essay about.
As for finding specific sources, it might work. Though I think using the robot is best when you really know nothing about the topic. Yesterday, I had the robot search for things pertaining to Islamic Law which is even more confusing for me. With Indonesian Law in general, it's actually based on the Napoleonic Code (sort of), so I have something to go on with. But with Islamic Law, it's all Arabic to me. So the robot was really helpful with finding sources from Muslim writers (laymen and academic) and finding Surahs and stuff, and putting them all together in a coherent way. Also, the Quran is yet another behemoth which I wouldn't even know where to start; contrary to popular belief is not 'the Bible but Muslim', crack open the Book of Genesis and then crack open the first few pages of the Quran and you'll know what I'm talking about. But I digress, lol.
Oh, boy. Islamic law... You know you can't understand the Quran without the Hadith...LOL! Have fun with that!
I can sort of see it as an addition to a search engine, but I just can't let myself do it. I enjoy the process of research especially when it takes me down unexpected rabbit holes.
I like finding an obscure reference to something and then checking out that source and then seeing where it takes me. I know it's not the most efficient method, but I enjoy learning more as I find new information. I don't want a LLM to guide me in this.
For those of us writing historical fiction, it makes little sense to not want to walk around in our time period soaking it in through our skin. I mean, not exactly the most lucrative endeavor. Better love it! I'm glad I have 12 years of non-AI research behind me. Otherwise, I wouldn't recognize all the bloopers these systems create. The "real" research is already full of contradictions enough. But I do want to get this project DONE. So, I'm risking some AI searches for some last minute details, in case they can give me something interesting that I can confirm. But just sending me to a Wiki isn't much of an improvement.
I experimented with using it for research as well and had the same result. Even when I asked it for references on a topic, it managed to swap authors and titles or invent books! Maybe it's better now. But it worries me how eager some people are to hand over our society to these things when they can't even manage some very basic processes.
A minefield, for certain. My first efforts were similar. I got very excited to see a long list of perfect-sounding articles, complete with recognizable authors and publications, only to discover none of them existed. Crushing. Hah. Now many of the references are from Gemini are legit, but they're just Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica. Meh. In troubleshooting some printmaking problems, Grok has pointed me to several good websites that I hadn't yet found myself. So the future of SEO is fuzzy too.
Getting very much that experience with some doctoral candidates I'm assisting. They try to use AI for references, but most of them end up being plausible sounding hallucinations. And the students have to pay my billing rate to weed them out.
I hope you have a good billing rate. Hah.