"I like the idea of having an AI to be a sounding board, just to bounce random ideas off of."
Why is this more useful than a rubber duck?
https://rubberduckdebugging.com/
"What has been helpful is Brave browser's AI search result. I can't comment on other browsers/search engines."
I don't find this useful. I want a search engine to show its sources, so I can check it's not serving me confident nonsense. If I want high-level summaries, they can be found on Wikipedia, or in blog posts by people I know are human, again with links to sources.
Why more useful than rubber duck? Inherent in my ideas are often questions that an AI might help answer. Another aspect is memory; I would expect my AI to be able to recall that crazy idea I was grinding on last month, especially if I'm now thinking of something related to it.
Brave does show sources ;) as does Duck Duck Go. And sometimes those sources include Wikipedia. DDG's browser product is trash, though, I just use their search at times.
"Inherent in my ideas are often questions that an AI might help answer."
I guarantee you and your rubber duck could come up with more creative and more relevant answers. Or at least the duck could help youformulated the right questions. At which point an old school, nonsmart index search is your go-to.
"Another aspect is memory; I would expect my AI to be able to recall that crazy idea I was grinding on last month"
Why would you expect that? I find they often forget context in the course of a single conversation.
"Brave does show sources ;) as does Duck Duck Go."
Good to know. In which case they're just as featureful as a Wikipedia page, but probably not as accurate. Because they could at ant time be "hallucinating" and spouting confident nonsense.
"DDG's browser product is trash, though, I just use their search at times."
Their browser is just a wrapper around Blink (or WebKit if you're on an iThing), I agree it's of limited use. Their search portal is a wrapper around Bing these days. It's not as good as it was a few years ago, before it was that. But I've to find anything to replace it.
