[anonytrary]

The key thing to understand about Google (the search product) is that it does search somewhat well but it is extremely bad at synthesis. When it comes to big data, synthesis is just as important as search. The UX with traditional 2000-era search engines involves the user being given a library's worth of information rabbit holes to dig through. With synthesis engines, the UX is completely different and they might even be solving different user problems.

As per your example, nobody currently uses Google as a way to draft letters, but rather as a way to learn how to draft letters. I think the distinction is pretty key in understanding the difference between the two problem spaces. I would think that "write me a letter" is a problem that isn't in Google's domain. I do not think synthesis engines will necessarily replace search engines, but the two will both be useful.

The premise of Google's interaction design is that you will be taken to an external resource. Google in recent years has started adding widgets and blurbs at the top of the search results for common things like stocks, covid-cases chart, weather, etc. but this synthesized content isn't their primary focus and are likely hard-coded to a large extent.

[powerapple]

The question is that if you can have "write me a letter", would you still go for "find out how to write a letter"? Needless to say you can actually have model to explain to you "how to write a letter" better than Google. How do I use Google now (kind of, because I switched to duckduckgo actually)? Mostly to search for answers to a question, a error message or something. It can be solved with ChatGPT, except ChatGPT is not as convenient given I can type in address bar, browser will bring me to a search page. For me Google is a gateway to StackOverflow, wiki, documentations, blogs, it is very much replaceable.

No one currently uses Google search to draft letter not because we don't want to, because Google is not able to solve the problem, hence we settle with a two-step solution, find out how then do it.

Another thing I use Google search (again duckduckgo) is for navigation, I remember partial name of a website, and use it to find the link to the page.

[Kurtz79]

The thing is, chatGPT seems to be already capable to perform Google's function reasonably well.

If you ask for the top websites about [topic], it will output a shortlist of web links each with a description of the website.

You can narrow down, ask for a specific number of links, ask to exclude videos or specific websites from the results...etc.

If there was a chatGPT service with UI/speed/availability/up-to-date database of Google (a 2-months-old technology vs. a 25-years-old one), I would probably do my searches there almost exclusively.

In a world where we are bombarded by nearly limitless information, the ability to synthesise and focus on what one is already looking for is far more valuable than the breadth of results Google will output.