Option to turn off all AI features

marc_vb

I think Andrea means to have a switch to completely turn off AI: functionality and visibility in UI.

With all the creepy AI stuff coming from Google and Microsoft (eg. Microsoft Recall) it would be great to have the option to keep away from it.

andreagrandi

Vlad something like this:

Suppose (well, some of these examples are real) you have these three features, which are all AI related:

Quick Answer (use AI to produce a quick answer based on your query)
Always Quick Answer when the question ends by "...?"
Summarise News results etc....

Instead of making the user go through all the Settings and disable them one by one, also provide a clear and explicit switch:

[ ] Disable AI based features in Search

which, if [X] flagged, it will automatically switch off the three other settings mentioned before.

New "AI based" features, should always respect the "Disable AI based features in Search" preference: if it's disabled, the new feature should be off by default, if it's not disabled, the new feature can be ON (because it means user wants the AI stuff)

I don't want this setting to hide, for example, the link to https://kagi.com/summarizer/index.html or FastGPT. I don't mind having them available, I just want to be sure that when I search something, the produced texts and links will be from the found websites and not AI / LLM generated.

Thanks

CrunchyFritos

Vlad Vlad, this discussion feels like it is perhaps more a debate about the framing than it is about the actual available options. There is clearly a subset of users very concerned about the use of LLMs in Kagi and it sounds to me that what they want is an easy way to be assured that LLM functionality is and always will be off by default for them even if Kagi adds new features moving forward.

For example:

andreagrandi New "AI based" features, should always respect the "Disable AI based features in Search" preference: if it's disabled, the new feature should be off by default, if it's not disabled, the new feature can be ON (because it means user wants the AI stuff)

That's an implicit feature that is not captured by the technical ability to manually go in and turn off Auto Quick Answer, and I think the insistence that AI is "already disabled by default" for every other feature somewhat misses the point that what these users appear to be concerned about is the assurance that LLM features will be off and will continue to be off by default for them.

My view is that providing them this assurance may end up being the lowest-cost, lowest-effort way for the small Kagi team to address what seems to be a pretty regular flow of issues/requests on KagiFeedback.org while at the same time freeing the team to continue to develop AI-based features for those of us (I suspect we are in the vast majority) who really like and value the features, especially as they have been thoughtfully implemented by Kagi.

freediverx

Vlad
While your “slippery slope” concern is valid, we shouldn’t pretend that AI is just another feature that users may or may not want. It is the current scam du jour embraced by Wall Street and tech bros and similar in offensiveness to the previously popular scam which was crypto. As such, it merits special consideration.

carl

Vlad I worry that this approach will create an incredible maintenance burden on our small team.

You are right and I think it's time for Kagi to push back against over-demanding requests. I'd rather see you focus on bringing unique improvement in information search, things that nobody else has that makes you have to pay for Kagi to get it, rather than tailoring the UI to very personal tastes.

marc_vb

carl
Although I don't know how their codebase is organized, I personally, as a programmer myself, don't see this as a lot of work. One setting to turn all AI features off.

Besides that, as a small team, I would rather have them fully focused on the search engine part.

Vlad

marc_vb Note that this setting already exists.

This is the only AI feature that is semi-automatic (triggers if the user adds ? to the end of the query). Everything else that is AI related is already disabled by default in Kagi and will stay that way.

carl

marc_vb Programmatically it's probably not that hard, but as the user base grows, too many options and settings add confusion. Users will expect rapid support for a product they pay for.

andreagrandi How many others are there which I haven’t found yet?

This quote shows that the user doesn't primarily want their issue solved, they want Kagi to tailor their experience for all users to his or her personal taste.

AI has been "interpreting" what you type into a search engine for at least a decade by now. It is to be expected. And if those who don't want it can turn it off with just 3 clicks, I see it as a waste of time to argue for having a 1 click button. Google wouldn't even give an option.

Vlad

CrunchyFritos Well said thanks. My worry is that adding master off switch will produce an inverse effect on new users, communicating wrongly that we have a ton of AI features turned on by default and that we are somehow an AI-first company which is not the case.

We are a search first company and what we are really talking about is one feature that triggers in 0.00001% of queries, mostly on demand as people almost never add ? at the end of query, that you can already turn off, and the design of which was a product of discussion with the users on both side of the 'isle' here on this forum where everyone agreed that this implementation makes a lot of sense for both new and existing users.

Which is why I am trying to get to the depths of the problem here. I think most people agree that our implementation of these features has been thoughtful, not in-your-face, and having these features available on demand is sometimes useful. We have published a detailed AI integration philosophy, something no search engine did. And the word AI is mentioned exactly 0 times on Kagi home page for new users, it is not like we are trying to make it our main selling point.

So there is no objective risk of Kagi 'running away' with throwing AI in your face (and there never was) and we will certainly make sure to engage with the community on every burning question like we are doing here. So I want to better understand what is the problem that we are solving here?

CrunchyFritos

Vlad Fair, I'll leave it to those whose views I was trying to steelman to respond. FWIW, I love the ability to trigger Quick Answer with ? and use it all the time. So thank you.

Vlad

carl

This quote shows that the user doesn't primarily want their issue solved, they want Kagi to tailor their experience for all users to his or her personal taste.

That is subject to everyone's interpretation. I personally read it as a valid question and I am trying to genuinely understand why @andreagrandi and other users have a perception that there may be other "AI stuff", perhaps assuming that Kagi is doing same things other companies in the space do, despite us being objectively slow, thoughtful and careful (I would think) with rolling out any AI powered features.

marc_vb

carl AI has been "interpreting" what you type into a search engine for at least a decade by now.

That's not the type of AI we're talking about here. We're talking about AI making use of LLM's.

andreagrandi

Vlad thanks for understanding Vlad. I should maybe give you more context about me, so that you can better understand requirements. I’m not opposed to the usage of generative AI in certain contexts. I personally use it with GitHub Copilot and I also use ChatGPT.

The difference there is that in that case I 100% expect the text to be generated, so I know I need to double check and verify.

In a search engine instead, I expect to find documents and pages written by humans. I use a search engine sometimes to verify a text produced by AI. If the results are AI generated too, how do I verify information?

That’s why, in my request, I specified “disable AI features from search”.

I do like Summariser for example, but I only use it when I want. I wouldn’t want it to be activated when I do a simple search.

andreagrandi

Vlad

DuckDuckGo settings are a good example of how you could do this. They don’t have a global switch, but at least all the AI stuff is grouped under an explicit category

andreagrandi

marc_vb Carl’s reply is a good example of why I don’t like generative AI in search results: it’s very often wrong but pretend to know things 😅

marc_vb

andreagrandi
Yes indeed.

Problem is that you'll only see that if you ask those dumb AI's questions on subjects you have knowledge of. And then you often see answers that are wrong.

But questions are normally made on subjects you don't have knowledge of. And then you think it's smart, because to you the text looks ok.

There's so much wrong with generative AI. It gives people the wrong information. And, it makes people dumb, because they don't investigate themselves anymore.

A bit the same as navigation systems in cars. In the days before these, I could cross the country purely with the knowledge of roads and signs, and with the help of paper maps. Now I can't do that anymore, at least not as good as in those days. And, car navigation is also sometimes wrong.

AI is only good for big tech, as people are now blindly feeding it information, because "it's so cool". I personally don't want to be part of that.

carl

andreagrandi Very original to compare other posters an AI. Haven't seen that a thousand times...

The fact is that Kagi doesn't shove AI down your throat and has an easy way to turn off AI. Ask yourself if maybe the main point to be heard and seen or is it having an actual issue resolved?

Not to mention that a huge chunk of your search results will land you on pages full of AI-generated text, even in Kagi.

If you want almost AI-free results there is an easy way, search using Google Books or Z-Library.

marc_vb

andreagrandi I do like Summariser for example

I don't, as in many cases those are wrong also, so I still have to investigate myself, which I can do in the first place.

Vlad

andreagrandi

That’s why, in my request, I specified “disable AI features from search”.

Just to align on the context, AI is used in search everywhere, for example to understand query intent or rank pages. What I think you mean is "LLM features in search"?

This is where Kagi has only one such feature that triggers semi-automatically when you add ? to the query and it can already be disabled as discussed previously.

Ikuti

Hi, firstly as a current trial and possible future user I just wanted to say I very much welcome Vlad way of responses, trying to get into problem while also explaining theirs and the team logic behind the features/ possible solutions. Great communicating all around.

Now I personally would also prefer not to use any AI (ML) features when getting the answer since the act of web search is as other pointed out the act of sanity check on anything I'm doing at that moment.

It's good to know most features are disabled as default beside quick answer. I also don't mind the UI elements being left there (as long as they are not too annoying).

But I do agree with andregrandi that either one master boolean to turn off quick answer but also any new AI features related to manipulating the final answer would be helpful. While for now it's just 1 feature I don't expect it will always forever be just 1 feature till the end of time. And having to browse through settings to find which features I need to turn off is akin to installing windows and than having to turn off all the annoying features, not the best user experience.

I also understand Vlad worry that if such flag exists, it could make users wary there are more than 1 feature currently inside Kagi which as I understand would be false. In that case a compromise to me would be to keep all the AI related features under 1 category inside the settings. For now it can be a subcategory in general settings, in the future if there are more AI features, it's own category. This way I and others who don't want AI inside their answers would have an easy place to just turn off all that, while new users wouldn't be scared off by the master toggle that makes it feel like there are more AI features than there are in reality.

Vlad

Ikuti

In that case a compromise to me would be to keep all the AI related features under 1 category inside the settings.

I think this makes sense. We already have Assistant related settings (which are currently accessible in ultimate plan only) and it makes sense to move everything related into one settings page.

Vlad

andreagrandi This is helpful. I think this kind of 'master switch' would also mean removing it from UI, so if we had a switch like "Disable LLM features in Search" it seems you would expect that it would:

Hide Quick Answer
Hide Summarize/Ask questions
Hide Assistant features

Correct?

Vlad

carl This is not helpful, lets keep it in the spirit of collaboration.

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