You are really moving the goal post eh

Developing AI feature does not mean anything in itself. None of the AI features they built do anything at all in a personalized way. For sure they seem very invested into integrating AI in their product, but so far no data is used, and all the AI features are simply summarizers and research assistants. What is this supposed to prove?

I will make it simpler anyway:

What they wrote in a manifesto is a vague expression of what will happen in a non-specified future. If the whole AI fad will fade in a year, it won’t happen. In addition, we have no idea of what specifically they are going to build, we have no idea of what the impact on privacy is, what are the specific implementation choices they will take and many other things. Without all of this, your dystopian interpretation is purely arbitrary.

And this is rather ironic too:

Ironic how? Saying that a document is binding doesn’t mean blindly trusting it, it means that I know the power it holds, and it means it gives the power to get their ass audited and potentially fined on that basis if anybody doesn’t trust them.

Your attempt to mess with the meaning of my sentences is honestly gross. Being aware of the fact that a company is accountable has nothing do to with blind trust.

Just to sum it up, your arguments so far are that:

• they mention a “future” in which AI will be personalized and can act as our personal assistant, using data, in the manifesto.
• they integrated AI features in the current offering

This somehow leads you to the conclusion that they are building some dystopian nightmare in which they get your data and build a bubble around you.

My arguments are that:

• the current AI features are completely stateless and don’t depend on user data in any way (this capability is not developed in general and they use external models).
• the current features are very user-centric and the users have complete agency in what they can customize, hence we can only assume that similar agency will be implemented in AI features (in opposition to data being collected passively).
• to strengthen the point above, their privacy policy is not only great, but it’s also extremely clear in terms of implications of data collected. We can expect that if AI features “personalized” will come up, they will maintain the same standard in terms of clarity, so that users are informed exactly on the implication of disclosing their data. This differentiate the situation from Facebook, where the privacy policy is a book.
• the company business model also gives hope. With no other customer to serve than the users, there are no substantial incentive for kagi to somehow get data for anything else. If they can be profitable just by having users paying, then there is no economical advantage in screwing the users (in fact, the opposite). This is also clearly written in their doc, and the emphasis on the business model and incentive is also present in the manifesto.

The reality is: we don’t know. It might be that they will build something like you say, but the current track record doesn’t give me any reason to think they will. I, and I am sure a substantial percentage of their user base, use their product specifically because they are good and because they are user-centric and privacy focused. If they change posture, I would dump them in a second, and a search engine is not inherently something that locks you in (like an email). At the moment they deliver, and I am all-in for supporting businesses that use revenue models that are in opposition to ad-driven models and don’t rely on free labor. I do believe that economic and systemic incentive are the major reasons why companies are destroying user-privacy, I don’t thing there is any inherent evil. That’s why I can’t really understand how a business which depends on users paying (kagi) can be compared to one that depends on advertisers paying (meta), where users (their data) are just a part of a product.

Like, even if we assume that what’s written in the manifesto comes to life, if the data is collected by the company and only, exclusively, used to customize the AI in the way I want (not to tune it to sell me shit I don’t need), within the scope I need, with the data I choose to give, with full awareness of the implication, where is the problem? This is not a dystopia. The dystopia is if google builds the same tool and tunes it automatically so that it benefits whoever pays google (not users, but the ones who want to sell you shit). If a tool is truly making my own interests and the company interest is simply that I find the tool useful, without additional goals (ad impressions, visits to pages, product sold), then that’s completely acceptable in my view.

And now I will conclude this conversation, because I said what I had to, and I don’t see progress.