:D
Edit: 15 hours later it is still 93%. I am getting suspicious this isn't real.
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2026
448 points (98.5% liked)
Fuck AI
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1947 users here now
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A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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i dont use DDG and still went to vote NO AI.
It was 94% when I first looked at it a few days ago
Next up, from DDG:
"Oops, looks like we lost the data of the voting, so we'll just assume YES won because everyone loves Copilot AI, which is the best AI and has nothing to do with us having a contract with Microsoft!"
I'm seeing 79,264 votes with the same percentages now.
Technically, with 93%, it's safe to say, that we all feel the same about AI.
Yeah, the Pro-AI vote is getting close to the lizardman constant.
70k+ is a good representation of the users. Plenty of data points they can extrapolate and all of them point to scrapping AI. Good. Save some money and skip the slop trough.
It's not a survey. It's an ad. It's an ad for noai.duckduckgo.com. The fact that we're thinking it and talking about it means it was a good ad. But it's just an ad. The numbers are entirely meaningless.
Nothing about this ad says that they are scrapping AI. They aren't. They still provide AI by default. This is a way for the end user to opt out of that default.
I answered yes to see what happened. It tells me "Thanks for voting — You’re into AI. With DuckDuckGo, you can use it privately. Try Duck.ai"
No idea where they're going to take it from here, just wanted to provide some insight on the other option.
Good, maybe now they can make it opt-in.
...and you posted a picture of a tweet, instead of something with an actual link. I do not understand. I really. Really don't.
Thank you for this. It's so common, I sometimes forget to be annoyed.
So you don't have to go to twatter and give meckahitler your attention
In this situation I've used xcancel before: just replace the x in the domain name with xcancel. Still get to see the Tweet
Link for the lazy: https://voteyesornoai.com/
Huh, if you select "No" it gives you an option to go to an alternate DDG homepage "noai.duckduckgo.com". But it looks like if you just go to their normal homepage, they've got a link to DuckAI at the top, searching for images defaults to including AI images, and they have a Search Assist that uses AI as well.
So even though the overwhelming majority of their users have responded "No AI", they're still defaulting everyone to the "Yes AI" experience unless you use an alternate URL. That's kind of shitty. I mean at least they have a "no" option, but seems like it should be the default.
First of all, the vote is from last week, so no measures have been taken yet. The vote is still live.
Secondly I think it was more of an ad for their AI, that backfired, because if I remember correctly, the "no" answer didn't provide the link to noai.duckduckgo.com when I first answered.
Lastly, I hope that this does change some minds in their C-suite. Having no AI as a standard would be a good start, but them filtering AI images is actually a bonus. This should be expanded upon.
Maybe this poll is to see if they should switch it to off by default?
The lazy, of course, being OP who went through the trouble to... post a picture instead of anything useful.
Thank you!
VoteYesOrNoAI.com to save others from typing
I couldn't find a link to it from DDG's homepage or blog, but a search gave https://duckduckgo.com/vote which redirects to the above.
I like the part where we're now pretending they're "pushing back" on forced AI almost a full year after implementing default, forced AI.
Where was this "norm" a year ago? Did the AI implement itself into DDG's main page by accident? Were they hacked? /s
It's fine that they made a mistake including default AI. But it's long overdue for them to admit that, and have some accountability, and maybe provide an apology, and an explanation. Instead, we get this milquetoast "Some people like it, some people don't, we weren't wrong it must've been you guys who changed your minds, but we're the good guys here, because now we're asking you!" gaslighting.
With all due respect, fuck you, duckduckgo.
I already use noai.duckduckgo.com but I would rather no AI be the default
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Took them a while. (Probably after countless feedback submissions criticizing it)
Them having it enabled by default actually made me switch off of them. I'm Trying out startpage currently and it doesn't seem terribly bad.
After completing the survey, and of course wanting NO AI, DuckDuckGo of course suggested using their "no AI" search engine, bragging that "We've Turned Off AI‑Assisted Answers" and "We've Removed AI‑Generated Images." The #2 result on my first rather bland search was Grokipedia.
I clicked "NO AI", and the result page showed "YES AI Thanks for voting — You’re into AI. With DuckDuckGo, you can use it privately."
Is it because I have cookies off by default, and haven't whitelisted this site for cookies?
Is it because I have NoScript? I had to allow voteyesornoai.com temporarily in order to see anything other than an orange page.
Yip, allowing that domain to set cookies correctly showed "NO AI Thanks for voting — You’d rather skip AI. With DuckDuckGo, you can, because it’s optional." after voting.
That's next-level stupid. Do the people at DDG know that cookies can be deleted, or blocked? Was this site made using AI?
I'm doing my part :)
Just a small note, in uBlock Origin there is a blocklist named "EasyList - AI Widgets" that seems to work fine, at least with Google. It also has entries for duckduckgo.com.
To get there:
- Firefox,
- application menu ≡ (or from menu: Tools),
- Extensions and themes,
- to the right of uBlock Origin, click the ...,
- Preferences,
- Filter lists (at the top),
- scroll down to Annoyances,
- under EasyList - Annoyances
- you can select EasyList - AI Suggestions
This is cool. I'd also be interested what people's primary reason for voting the way they did is. I think for me it's an environmental thing. I could get used to ignoring ai results at the top, but knowing those use so much electricity to also serve me something I rarely find useful is gross.
For me, it's an efficiency/reliability standpoint. As when I'm searching, I'm looking for what I want, not what something thinks I want. Also, once you learn of the switches and how to phrase a query, you generally can get what you are looking for (if it even exists) within the first few results.
There are times and places I think AI is or would be kind of useful. But every company being like "Yes AI by default!!!!! Haha no you can't turn it off" means that I would rather just have No AI, if I can't have "No AI, but a way to access AI when I would like to".
This is stupid.
As I always preach, I am one of Lemmy’s rare local LLM advocates. I use “AI” every day. But I’d vote no.
The real question isn’t if you are for or against AI.
It’s if you support Tech Bro oligarchy and enshittification, or prefer being in control of your tech. It’s not even about AI; it’s the same dilemma as Fediverse vs Big Tech.
And thats what Altman and such fear the most. It’s what you see talked about in actual ML research circles, as they tilt their heads at weird nonsense coming out of Altman’s mouth. Open weights AI is a race to the bottom. It’d turn “AI” into dumb, dirt cheap, but highly specialized tools. Like it should be.
And they can make trillions off that.
Well I think that the products currently being hyped as "AI" are significantly more dangerous and harmful than they will ever be useful, and I would like to burn them.
If it helps I think you just need to read the question as "Do you want AI in the form that is currently being offered." For all intents and purposes, that's the question being asked, because that's how the average person is going to read it.
The fact that AI can be a totally different product that doesn't fundamentally suck is nice to know, but doesn't exactly offer anything to most people.
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Pro tips: just had the word "wiki" to the subject you are trying to learn about in the search bar and, tada, you get access to reliable information, super detailled, well written and with multiple sources cited. This thing is gonna be an AI killer.
That might be a good tip. Wikipedia however is not reliable on a great many issues. Any issue where monied interests have a stake in fact. Even history is now being revised by axe grinders. Wikipedia is great, but it's not a reliable source for a great many issues, and real hit or miss otherwise.
Some subjects might have a great result, the next in the same category might not, one might be writtin in plain english and the next written in technical words making the result worthless to everyone unfamiliar with the nomenclature.
At the very least we should be able to not use it
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