I guess it's some sort of sick performance art by showing that even though the >90% voted no AI, DDG will still have AI turned on by default in its main site and corral the >90% into the hidden away subdomain.
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2026
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This is an obvious marketing exercise to promote their noai subdomain.
It's funny to me that their best excuse to you and me is "it's your choice." No reasoning about why AI is good or valuable, probably because they don't have one.
DDFG, maybe you guys should tell the AI devotees that it can be their choice, and make them turn on the setting themselves.
This is a weird response to a vote. If they told you the good, you’d complain they didn’t tell you the bad. If they told you the bad, you’d complain they were skewing one way or the other.
No option for "a little AI, maybe, where it makes sense, but don't go crazy with it" option, I see.
Probably because that's what they mean by "no"
Boy I miss when no meant no.
There is a option in the settings for that.
More bullshit URL slop.
Below the vote was a link to see what an internet with AI is, or something like that. I went and asked their AI if all this was just a blatant ad for their AI, and it gave me a long, long list of excuses, after which I told it: come on, just say yes or no, and it replied back: yes, it could be said to be a blatant ad :D
Judging by the votes, I don’t think it’s working that well as an ad?
Maybe the best ad is to not have AI
But but but
BUSINESS
~~innovation~~ COURAGE
Yes, you might be right on that. But nobody said all ads had to be effective! ;) They sure are getting a lot of attention... maybe this backfires, maybe they get something out of it, we don't know their expectations.
Isn't there a method to access only the non AI search? I read someone on that here.
Settings -> Search -> Search Shortcuts -> Add -> URL:
Note: it is "%s", lemmy adds the 25.
So this already exists. That tells me they were already aware the AI was not that popular.
THIS is how you do it, looking at you Brave: requiring me to (re)type my queries in the URL bar (appending '&summary=0' to it), so I'm not required to store a persistent cookie, keeping the damn setting off...