Google’s search results have become so bad that I recently subscribed to Kagi, and so far it’s been great. And because the subscription includes access to fairly high-level versions of all the major chatbots, I’ve been trying them out. So far my favorite is Anthropic’s Claude. A sample of the kinds of questions I ask: 

  • Is there consensus on when Terry Pratchett’s fiction began to decline in quality? 
  • What state parks in the USA compare in beauty and interest to the National Parks? 
  • Please provide, with quotations rather than summaries, some of Pope Francis’s statements about Catholic traditionalists. 
  • I like the Leica Q3 because of the high resolution and the fixed lens. Are there comparable cameras that cost less? 

Claude gives clear, detailed answers with a list of sources at the end. I’m using it every day now.