Andy Burn
Lex Feathers 🍂Duckduckgo has a survey for pro/anti-AI and I cackled so hard at the (current) results
Vaporeon 
☭@lexfeathers "Big Tech doesn't care if you want AI or not. They should.", written by the same company who added "AI" overview to their search without asking us...
I wonder what they'll do with the results, whether it'll make them reconsider it or not
@vaporeon_ Oh I doubt it will do anything other than confirm what they already know, but it's a good joke.
IntrepidVector@lexfeathers @vaporeon_ yeah I think this is mostly just to promote that their "AI" features are optional and can be toggled off, unlike with some other services. The poll reinforces the "you have a choice" message
@IntrepidVector @lexfeathers I see... Not really a choice if you clear cookies regularly and it defaults to it turned on and not to it turned off... I avoid it by going to https://lite.duckduckgo.com, the version without JavaScripts and without LLMs, but it doesn't have picture search, so for picture search I instead have to remember to type in https://noai.duckduckgo.com, which is somewhat annoying...
@vaporeon_ @IntrepidVector Yeah it's not great. Afaik some browsers are offering it as a default search engine? I heard librewolf is in talks about adding it as a default option.
@lexfeathers @IntrepidVector You mean lite.duckduckgo.com as default search engine? I can confirm that Librewolf does offer that, I switched to Librewolf recently over the Firefox LLM stuff and set the default engine to lite.duckduckgo.com
@vaporeon_ @IntrepidVector I mean noai.duckduckgo
Jean-Sébastien Guay@lexfeathers @vaporeon_ @IntrepidVector you can set it up as a custom search engine and then select it by default, that way all searches go to noai search. Even those from the address bar.
Instructions below for FireFox and forks thereof.
https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@skylark13/115905866049449231
Jean-Sébastien Guay (@[email protected])
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] You need to go to Settings - Search. Then at the bottom you have "search shortcuts", there you can click "Add" to add a new one. Name it "NoAI DDG" or whatever and paste https://noai.duckduckgo.com/%s In the URL field. (Right-click copy that since Mastodon sometimes hides the https part) Then you can go to the top where it says "Default search engine" and select the new one you just created. It's a bit different in the mobile version but similar enough.
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
circyn@skylark13 @lexfeathers @vaporeon_ @IntrepidVector thanks for this! Now set up and it's so much better
Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️⚧️@lexfeathers @vaporeon_ @IntrepidVector Tor browser have it in their search engine list, just not as default.
kobeni's stairs@vaporeon_ @IntrepidVector @lexfeathers it's a bit annoying to do it for each browser across devices but you can add and set the noai version as the default search engine
Big Kumera Energy@lexfeathers @req and if you want to get further away from AI nonsense like the stuff Mozilla is pushing in Firefox, it's pretty friction-free to move to Waterfox.
Nate Allen
Licho@vaporeon_ @IntrepidVector @lexfeathers I've immediately changed my default search bar url to that with noai
gudenau@vaporeon_ @IntrepidVector @lexfeathers They have URL parameters you can use for settings like this, dig around in the settings you'll find them.
Video Game King@lexfeathers @vaporeon_ Do you think they've recreated this Simpsons bit with their limited pin giveaway (which I'm linking to just so I can get that stupid pin)?
https://VoteYesOrNoAI.com/vote/no
https://youtu.be/3r7SNzYYcfc
https://VoteYesOrNoAI.com/vote/no
https://youtu.be/3r7SNzYYcfc
bri@vaporeon_ @lexfeathers you vote no and they’re like ‘buuuut are you sure?’ so i rather doubt they’ll be taking it to heart lol
kat donegan 🇵🇸✊
gahlord
nash@brhfl @vaporeon_ @lexfeathers they should let you vote on that question too, to tell them you're also not curious
@nash @brhfl @lexfeathers I already know what an "AI" internet looks like, we're in it right now, all the web sites keep pushing "AI" that wasn't asked for
Sally Brotman
rugk@Sally12
Dos not show up for me and I think this is a fill and clever move of @DuckDuckGo (the general AI question campaign)
@vaporeon_ @nash @brhfl @lexfeathers
Dos not show up for me and I think this is a fill and clever move of @DuckDuckGo (the general AI question campaign)
@vaporeon_ @nash @brhfl @lexfeathers
Randy_underscore_S@brhfl @vaporeon_ @lexfeathers That was hilarious to me because I have javascript OFF by default and when I clicked it just went to their lite page since it was a new, different subdomain.
Ingrid!!@brhfl @vaporeon_ @lexfeathers I am -1272 curious. AI's so omnipresent that I could not be less curious. What is DuckDuckGo ON jfc
Oblomov
turmoni@vaporeon_ @lexfeathers you can at least use noai.duckduckgo.com to avoid that, it would be nice to not have to update every search box though (and it would be nice if it made !g go to a Google results page without any AI crap)
Elaine Jackson-Pimentel 🦄🌈@[email protected] I voted so you don't have to.
In a poll of 20,132 votes:
6% said 'YES AI'
94% said 'NO AI'
Democracy's inconvenient for business, so expect the switch to "opt-in" — except it's fake.
Every new tab: a prompt asking if you want to "try new AI features."
They'll randomly swap YES/NO positions, flip colors, change outlines vs. fills, use every dark-pattern trick until you accidentally click yes.
Don't worry — you can always "opt out" by clearing your cookies.
A simple settings toggle? Too user-friendly."
In a poll of 20,132 votes:
6% said 'YES AI'
94% said 'NO AI'
Democracy's inconvenient for business, so expect the switch to "opt-in" — except it's fake.
Every new tab: a prompt asking if you want to "try new AI features."
They'll randomly swap YES/NO positions, flip colors, change outlines vs. fills, use every dark-pattern trick until you accidentally click yes.
Don't worry — you can always "opt out" by clearing your cookies.
A simple settings toggle? Too user-friendly."
Kg. Madee Ⅱ.@vaporeon_ @lexfeathers hello big tech, I'm dad
Delta Sierra@lexfeathers "We don't all feel the same about AI"
Kinda... kinda looks like we do?
renegadespork@notthatdelta @lexfeathers 5% is ~20 people... definitely execs / coerced employees.
@jesse @lexfeathers "blink twice if we should send help"
Josh “Yoshi” Vickerson@notthatdelta @lexfeathers trend is strengthening at over 5x the sample size lol
@josh @lexfeathers I love to see it!
Dan@notthatdelta @lexfeathers some amount of selection bias can be assumed, but still, heck
lilo@dan @notthatdelta @lexfeathers there are probably simply more people on the NoAI side who know how to work around the multiple vote protection.
@lilo @notthatdelta @lexfeathers well, it's targeting duckduckgo users... whom i suspect have largely gone to DDG to avoid AI on other search engines. Not saying it doesn't likely reflect a growing public backlash against AI everywhere, but I am saying the target demo is biased
dragonfrog@dan @lilo @notthatdelta @lexfeathers
Exactly - if I wanted my search full of AI results I'd probably still be using google.
Exactly - if I wanted my search full of AI results I'd probably still be using google.
@lilo @dan @lexfeathers maybe they should just ask an LLM how to bypass that vote protection then! /s
I agree with Dan that there's selection bias here, since the average DDG user is probably more concerned about privacy and/or environmental impact and/or the ethics of using models trained on stolen data and/or actively wants a AI-free experience.
Conversely, the argument of "the other side is ChEAtInG" doesn't pass muster.
Maldron
Rob Isaac@notthatdelta @lexfeathers 5% is low enough we could go door to door handing out dunce caps
Lord Kelvin
Brandon Rohrer
Jeremy Kahn"we don't all feel the same" sorta sounds like "not all men" special pleading in this context, doesn't it?
Claus Cramon Houmann
Em 
@Em0nM4stodon @claushoumann @lexfeathers some other folks have rightly pointed out it feels kind of like an ad on DDG's part, so I kind of doubt they'll implement any change regardless of the results.
But I also hope!
@claushoumann @notthatdelta @lexfeathers @Em0nM4stodon back to 95% when I voted, but still all the way up there.
Ripp_ 
pixx@notthatdelta @lexfeathers @ifixcoinops
It's at like 15k votes and still 94% no, I'm just wondering how much of that is coming from fedi, how many people use ddg to begin with, and whether this is an artifact of where it's being shared or of who uses DDG or of general public sentiment or...
Orb 2069@pixx @notthatdelta @lexfeathers @ifixcoinops
Here's a hint: ChatGPT has so few paying users that they're considering ads to offset their shortfall.
Ever heard the phrase "vote with your wallet"?
@Orb2069 @notthatdelta @lexfeathers
They lose money _on_ the paying users, it's not just about number of users.
@pixx @Orb2069 @lexfeathers the end goal is to get major companies dependent on the LLM workflow, once that's done they'll raise prices and cut features. It's hugely unprofitable right now.
Ed Zitron has written extensively on the financial situation here, and there's just no other option for the LLM companies (they can't keep burning investment money forever).
@notthatdelta @Orb2069 @lexfeathers
Sure, but - that's not my point?
"It's unprofitable" sure, yeah, that's obvious
"It's unpopular" does _not_ necessarily follow, given that they _lose money on each of their users_.
15k isn't a nothingburger of a sample pool, but - that's why I'm curious about how representative it is.
My thought process here is something along the lines of, 'If you actually like AI, _you wouldn't be using DDG to begin with_, you'd be fine with google or chatgpt or whatever so you wouldn't even notice this and you're not going to care to vote in it'.
Hence: is this a representative sample _of fedi_? _Of DDG users_ as a whole? Or of the _general public_?
@pixx @Orb2069 @lexfeathers whoops, I actually meant to reply to Orb and replied to your reply - but you raise a good point. I definitely think the sample is biased, probably toward fedi users (for anecdotal evidence, I use DDG as my primary search engine at work and for personal use, and I never saw *anything* about this via DDG).
But even assuming this sample set is primarily DDG users (not just DDG-fedi users) it's inherently biased, because someone going to the effort of switching to a non-default search engine is probably in the top 10 or 5 percent of computer users by skill level, and therefore more likely to be concerned about their privacy or cognizant of the ethical and environmental issues around LLM usage.
@notthatdelta @Orb2069 @lexfeathers
I'm actually unsure.
I've been part of discussions around town where some very computer-illiterate seniors were complaining that their phone was all AI now and it didn't _work_ anymore.
I don't think high skill is necessarily actually correlated to stance here - hence my "Hm, I wonder?" and not "I have a strong opinion about this!" :)