Thanks for your post. You've actually somewhat brought me around on AI search with your perplexity example. My previous AI search experiences have been general LLMs like ChatGPT (Opaque source data means I have to verify with traditional web search anyways) and Google's new AI search feature (I'm uncomfortable with google discouraging traffic to the broader web). Since perplexity actually shows and links its sources, I'm going to give a try for the next few days alongside my usual DDG searches.

I would be interested if you have an example of a search with mostly malicious results, since your stated experience seems disproportionate to my own. While I do concur that some results/websites are antagonistic towards my goal of useful information, I'm quite surprised to see someone say that they hate visiting websites in general. (Perhaps I'm missing hyperbole?)

A bit of a digression, but it amused me to see you say you struggle to word your query for search engines, because I've typically had more problems wording my query for LLMs. I wonder if this is could be attributed to communication preferences, or just due to me having used search engines for almost 2 decades.

Subserial Network. A weird little pseudo-indie game with an odd retro-futuristic vibe. It mixes cyberpunk post-humanism with web 1.0 nostalgia. You're part of an organization that deals with subversive synthetics, and your task is to locate a leader of this movement by infiltrating their online spaces. The game presents you with a handful of windows (email client, browser, lo-fi media player, etc.) and the gameplay mostly consists of reading to find clues to piece together and keywords to search.
I greatly enjoyed the vibe and world-building, and was pleasantly surprised by some of the reveals. The ending was a little abrupt for my tastes, but overall this has been one of my favorite gaming experiences this year.
I highly recommend it if you enjoy cyberpunk (the literary genre), early internet nostalgia, or epistolary storytelling.