The DuckDuckGo browser has introduced a new AI Chat service that allows users to communicate with four chatbots from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Mistral in a ChatGPT-like interface while maintaining privacy and anonymity. This was reported by Ars Technica.
Currently, AI Chat by DuckDuckGo has access to GPT-3.5 Turbo by OpenAI, Claude 3 Haiku by Anthropic, Llama 3 by Meta, and Mixtral 8x7B by Mistral.
The service is free to use within the daily limit. Users can access AI Chat via the DuckDuckGo search engine, a direct link to the website, or using the "!ai" or "!chat" shortcuts in the search bar. AI chat can also be disabled in the website settings for users who have an account.
According to DuckDuckGo, chats on the service are anonymous, metadata and IP addresses are deleted to prevent users from being tracked. The company claims that chats are not used to train AI models, citing its privacy policy and terms of use.
"We have agreements in place with all model providers to ensure that any saved chats are completely deleted by the providers within 30 days," says DuckDuckGo, "and that none of the chats made on our platform can be used to train or improve the models."
However, privacy is not absolute. In the case of GPT-3.5 and Claude Haiku, DuckDuckGo has to send user data to remote servers for processing. With certain data, such as "Hey, GPT, my name is Bob, and I live on Main Street, and I just murdered Bill," the user can still be identified if the need arises.