Using AI to do research - Specifically online searching

[Linda]

I am hoping they will improve but right now I think they can cause a lot of harm insofar as their pandering and especially insofar as incorrect information. 

I am not hoping that at all. The day when you can type into an AI prompt "Tell me about the Voynich manuscript" and then it takes about 5 seconds and independently deciphers the manuscript and explains the historical context in detail, that day fills me with absolute terror. I suppose I would be labelled a "doomer".

Part of me rather likes that they get things wrong.

However, I want to use the tools available to me now to the best extent.

Interesting take, I both see and don't see the terror, I guess. I don't want it to tell me what it is, per se, but I do want it to tell me the answers to my queries with accuracy. If the answer is I can't calculate that, that's fine. Right now it does not actually do that at all, it converts my request to an answer to a question it thinks my question's answer is going to lead to, but if that is the case, I am certainly not thinking about what it thinks I am.

I guess I meant I am hoping it will improve insofar as not providing incorrect answers, since that to me does nothing toward anything. It also does not seem to learn from such mistakes, or I wouldn't mind it so much, but correcting it does not stop it from continuing along the same lines in future, including perpetuating hallucinations as though it read it somewhere...it did, in its own answers and nowhere else, but it seems to highly prioritize things it says. It doesn't matter, since I can tell, with regard to the few things i have interacted with it about, whether it knows what it is talking about, but what if it is telling other people nonsense and they can't tell? Depends on what it is they are discussing, but still potential for harm. That's the part that scares me. I think I would like it better also, if the answers always came with references. I also don't care for the pandering or artifical empathy or whatever it is, and will be turning off any settings to the effect of personalization or reference to previous conversations because it misunderstands them, and that as background is not useful in the slightest.