[Thoughts](EN) The fading era of search: A developer's confession on preferring AI

A personal confession on relying on AI and barely searching these days

Table of Contents

• Opening AI Instead of Search
• Productivity Brought by AI
• The Decline in Blog Traffic
• A Shift in Behavior
• Future Direction

Opening AI Instead of Search

Although I am someone who loves technical blogging and writing, ever since the recent advancements in generative AI I rarely use search engines or click into web articles anymore.

To be honest, AI organizes information so well that I don’t need to spend time on searching. While it does hallucinate occasionally and provide false information, I stay vigilant. When something is unclear, I request references and verify them every time so I seem to be avoiding those pitfalls well lately.

Productivity Brought by AI

The performance of modern AI models has improved significantly and using two generative AIs simultaneously allows for a fair amount of cross verification.

Using AI throughout last year and this year, I felt a significant sense of crisis. If prompts are used effectively, AI now generates code incredibly well. For tasks with standardized answers, AI has explosively boosted productivity.

The Decline in Blog Traffic

Traffic to my blog has been steadily declining. Admittedly I am writing less than before but I believe the advancement of AI also plays a role. Since engineers nowadays rely more on AI, the influx of visitors via search engines has dropped.

A Shift in Behavior

To be completely honest I tend to ask AI first rathen than searching. I only visit my blog when there is a content that does not need searching.

Of course writing still holds value because AI needs original data sources to learn and function. However in all fields where productivity is paramount, using AI instead of search seems to be becoming the new norm.

Future Direction

At this point of view, my writing style has also changed. Previously I created simple tutorials or technical guides but I now feel that AI can sufficiently replace that domain. I believe I need to pivot towards writing about personal opinions, thoughts or actual experiences.