ChatGPT as search engine
Posted on by Fred C Yankowski
I keep notes in text files using the Emacs Org-Mode, and I often search through those files using grep. I got thinking about a book I read years ago that, among other topics, discussed (near as I can recall) a note-taking application that allowed quick incremental searches through a large textual document. But I could not recall the author, so I asked ChatGPT using some sketchy criteria:
What is the name of the guy who died a few years ago who wrote about software user interface design? He proposed a personal journal application that allowed easy searching through one composite file.
ChatGPT immediately responded with the information I wanted:
The person you are referring to is Jef Raskin. He was a human-computer interface expert and the creator of the Macintosh computer project at Apple. He wrote a book titled “The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems” in which he discussed the principles of designing user interfaces for software applications. In the book, he also proposed a personal journal application called “The Humane Environment” which allowed easy searching through one composite file. Jef Raskin passed away in 2005.
The answer is spot on. Amazing.