AI is making it easier to create more noise, when all I want is good search

Notion released its AI features. Like most AI-powered-document tools, the value proposition is that the AI can generate content for you.

We use Notion for the bulk of our knowledge management at CodePen. I have no use for an AI that can write for me. If I add anything to our knowledge base, it will directly stem from my specific expertise around the product, our processes, or my own experience. If a bot can write for me, what is the point of me writing in the first place? Or being on the team?

What I would use the shit out of, though, is a chatbot that has been trained on all the information in the CodePen knowledge base. Have it suck in all the meeting notes, project board cards, and weekly reports, and then be able to answer questions about the content (and provide links to the original docs).

I have a similar desire for the personal notes in my Obsidian vault. Getting back to the information I’ve saved in there requires me to remember the file name, tag, or the correct search term to pull up the text I’m looking for. I’d love to ask the vault questions and have it figure out the most relevant information to provide an answer without me having to use specific search terms.

There’s been a lot of hype around AI-written content. If you ask me, if there’s one thing we don’t need more of on the internet, it is more soulless content written for “SEO” purposes, with enough wordcount to inject ads between. At the same time, using Google search has been a terrible experience for years, thanks to the aforementioned content. I just want good search.