'Arc Search' Combines Browser, Search Engine, and AI Into Something New and Different (theverge.com) 24
David Pierce reports via The Verge: A few minutes ago, I opened the new Arc Search app and typed, "What happened in the Chiefs game?" That game, the AFC Championship, had just wrapped up. Normally, I'd Google it, click on a few links, and read about the game that way. But in Arc Search, I typed the query and tapped the "Browse for me" button instead. Arc Search, the new iOS app from The Browser Company, which has been working on a browser called Arc for the last few years, went to work. It scoured the web -- reading six pages, it told me, from Twitter to The Guardian to USA Today -- and returned a bunch of information a few seconds later. I got the headline: Chiefs win. I got the final score, the key play, a "notable event" that also just said the Chiefs won, a note about Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, a bunch of related links, and some more bullet points about the game.
Basically, instead of returning a bunch of search queries about the Chiefs game, Arc Search built me a webpage about it. And somewhere in there is The Browser Company's big idea about the future of web browsers -- that a browser, a search engine, an AI chatbot, and a website aren't different things. They're all just parts of an internet information finder, and they might as well exist inside the same app. [...] But from a pure product perspective, this feels closer to the way AI search should work than anything I've tried. Products like Copilot and Perplexity AI are cool, but they're fundamentally just chatbots with web access. Arc Search imagines something else entirely: AI that explores websites by building you a new one every time you ask.
Basically, instead of returning a bunch of search queries about the Chiefs game, Arc Search built me a webpage about it. And somewhere in there is The Browser Company's big idea about the future of web browsers -- that a browser, a search engine, an AI chatbot, and a website aren't different things. They're all just parts of an internet information finder, and they might as well exist inside the same app. [...] But from a pure product perspective, this feels closer to the way AI search should work than anything I've tried. Products like Copilot and Perplexity AI are cool, but they're fundamentally just chatbots with web access. Arc Search imagines something else entirely: AI that explores websites by building you a new one every time you ask.
Oh, no (Score:5, Insightful)
Not this shit again.
So Arc Search is like phind.com... (Score:4)
From the "shit nobody asked for" department (Score:2)
Quite seriously, who wants that?
Re: (Score:2)
VC's? Or Silicon Valley bros looking for VC money? Who wants Arc?
Re:From the "shit nobody asked for" department (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, it's a VC fishing op.
Never mind, carry on.
Re: (Score:2)
Quite seriously, who wants that?
Typing in a question (or even a partial question) like this, and getting an answer -- is exactly how most people use the web. It's what the Google search page does for years now. I haven't tried Bing all year, but is this also not what MS does (only they are ahead of Google with the AI part)?
The answer to "Who asked for this?" is: EVERYBODY and it's not new.
The difference here is that it might be better at parsing your question and better at summarizing the results. MIGHT be. The main thing about these kind
Re: From the "shit nobody asked for" department (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It scoured the web -- reading six pages, it told me, from Twitter to The Guardian to USA Today -- and returned a bunch of information a few seconds later.
Results from Twitter? Indeed, nobody asked for that. I want even slightly more reputable sources, not random bleatings from anybody with a keyboard and an axe to grind.
Might as well exist in the same app? (Score:2)
priorities (Score:2)
My top priority when searching is reliable information, communicated well. Arc search's design permanently abandons any such notion. Troth sential, America's finest source for troth, all the same to a custom, bespoke web page builder. And if it's wrong? Who cares, it won't get generated again. Might as well call the app "Lie to you, or whatever".
Re: (Score:2)
My top priority when searching is reliable information, communicated well. Arc search's design permanently abandons any such notion. Troth sential, America's finest source for troth, all the same to a custom, bespoke web page builder. And if it's wrong? Who cares, it won't get generated again. Might as well call the app "Lie to you, or whatever".
As useless as TFA and this "new app" may be, what does that have to do with Social Media, politics or factual accuracy?
3, 2, 1 Blocked (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting.
I remember when every NeXT cube came with a good dictionary.
Having that data remote seems silly because it's tiny and mostly static.
A quarterly sync with Wictionary would be plenty.
An exception would be Urban Dictionary because it's constantly evolving. And they monetize with merch. And corporate AI is too puritanical to repeat a majority of entries there.
I was hoping for innovation from the commercial dictionary sites but it never showed up. Princeton had useful Flash semantic network explorers
If I wanted ... (Score:4, Funny)
Self-cannibalizing (Score:4, Insightful)
I see some of the same problems other AI systems have here. Where does it retrieve the data to make these insta-websites? From websites. So if everyone used it then there would be no motivation to make websites. Then there would be no source of data for the AI.
This is the fundamental challenge I do not see the AI people address.
Re: (Score:2)
Duh, of course they won't address it. By the time this becomes a real problem, they want to be sitting on a beach somewhere. They couldn't care less that the bag... err... shareholders will be getting deep-sixed by the mess they created.
And so it thinks for you (Score:2)
Tried this on ipad (Score:2)
And it looks like a completely shitty app. It didn't even render correctly.
Ask Jeeves (Score:2)
I used to do this with Ask Jeeves. I'm sure this will work just as well.
Theft. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Now I can retire my brain ! (Score:2)
Hey great. This will take away all the inconvenience of me having to do my own research by wading through various results and making up my own mind whether they're relevant or just crap. Now I can be told exaclty what I'm supposed to view/thnk based on a list of important websites somebody else thinks are the best.
That'll save my brain a lot of work and wasted time looking at informtion from "non approved" places.
Hopefuly I'll also get to see a lot more relevant ads too.
Maybe at some point they can make t
Oh, great... (Score:2)
So, type in a search, no, it auto"corrects" what you type,and gets you sponsored ads faster than ever. And tells you that your search term's wrong.