this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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I don’t know about you, but my results have been wrong or outdated at least a quarter of the time. If you flip two coins and both are heads, your information is outright useless. What’s the point in looking something up to maybe find the right answer? We’re entering a new dark age, and I hate it.
I’ve been asking a bunch of next-to-obvious questions about things that don’t really matter and it’s been pretty good. It still confidently lies when it gives instructions but a fair amount of time it does what I asked it for.
I’d prefer to not have it, because it’s ethically putrid. But it converts currency and weights and translates things as well as expected and in half the time i’d spend doing it manually. Plus I kind of hope using it puts them out of business. It’s not like I’d pay for it.
I refuse to believe that it's in any way better or faster at unit and currency conversion than plain Google or DuckDuckGo. Literally type "100 EUR to USD" and you'll get an almost instant answer. Same with units: "100 feet to meters".
And if you're using it, you're helping their business. It's as simple as that.
100%. Unit conversion is a solved problem, and it is impossible for an AI to be faster or more accurate than any of the existing converters.
I do not need an AI calculator, because I have no desire to need to double check my calculator.
Well spotted. I retract my notion that unit conversion was convenient. Clearly I should have switched to another tab to do the thing that is solved.
So does qalc, and it can also do arithmetic and basic calculus quickly and (gasp) correctly!
Curious what and how you're prompting. I get solid results, but I'm only asking for hard facts, nothing that could have opinion or agenda inserted. Also, I never go past the first prompt. There be dragons that way.
Niche history and mineralogy topics. Just looking for threads to tug. I found that it offered me threads but they often did not lead anywhere relevant or outright did not exist. Which is fine, but kinda removes my need for AI. If I have a general purpose question, I check certain websites. I already know how to serve myself everyday information. AI’s just not helpful for my use case.
Overall, It’s time neutral. But it raises my blood pressure when it hallucinates, and dying of a stroke is undesirable for me.