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This New AI Search Engine Has a Gimmick: Humans Answering Questions


A new AI-powered search engine called Pearl is launching today, with an unusual pitch: It promises to connect you with an actual human expert if the AI answer sucks. WIRED gave it a spin.

On top of that, he claims that Pearl is significantly less likely to provide misinformation than many other AI search engines—which he believes are likely to deal with “a tidal wave” of lawsuits based on bad answers they give. Since I was doing a free test, it didn’t matter, but I would’ve been annoyed if I had actually paid the subscription fee just to get the same mediocre answer from both a human and an AI. But—as someone who really does want to DIY refinish my kitchen’s old pine planks—I think when I actually go looking for guidance, I’ll rely on other online communities of human voices, ones that don’t charge $28 a month: YouTube and Reddit.

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