The realization

Disclaimer: I'm not some rebel who doesn't use AI.

I just feel the need to be in control of when I use it. At least as far as I'm able to control it.

I find it concerning to ask "what is the nutritional value of the blueberries" and have the AI answer me.

In addition to the environmental cost for such a minor question, I feel like I'm progressively cutting back on my cognitive and thinking skills.

Where I did a little or a lot of research, now I suddenly find it difficult to move on to a deeper study of a source to which Overview refers.

angeliki's avatar
6d

I catch myself expecting to read the AI results of a simple google search. That is, my brain has already forgotten a decades-old habit. I used to browse through the results, open different tabs, until I found what I was looking for from a daily googling. My brain has been trained to be lazier.

I decided to try some interventions and actively monitor them.

First of all, I purged google search from all devices: work pc, personal pc, phone and tablet.

On desktop I use Brave and Firefox. So, in both browsers, I added noai.duckduckgo.com as my new default engine.

Furthermore, and for a wider variety of options, I also added www.startpage.com and www.qwant.com.

Related article that I found helpful: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-search-alternatives-no-ai/