What this tool does, and does not

Latter-day Search is a search engine over the scriptures, General Conference and a set of related libraries. Type a question and it finds the passages that come closest to what you mean. That is the whole job. It is worth being clear about what it does with those passages, and what it leaves to you.

What it does

• Shows real passages, word for word. Every card is a paragraph, a verse or a hymn verse exactly as it appears in the source, with the text before and after it one click away.
• Cites every one. The card names the document, the speaker or author and the year, and a copy button gives you the passage with a formatted citation.
• Links to the original. Every card opens the source page in a new tab, so you can read the passage in its full context.

Nothing on a results page is summarized, paraphrased or generated. There is no chatbot and no answer written in the tool's own voice. If a passage looks unfamiliar, open the source and check it. It is a real talk, verse or article.

What it does not do

• It does not answer doctrinal questions in its own words. It finds what someone already said and shows you where.
• It does not rank by authority. Results are ordered by how closely each passage matches the meaning of your query, so a magazine article can sit above a verse of scripture. A higher card is a closer match, not a weightier source.
• It does not tell you which passage is right. Weighing what you find, and reading it in context, is your part.
• It does not write talks, lessons or testimonies.

Where AI is used

Two things behind the scenes use machine learning, and neither one writes anything you read.

• Matching by meaning. Your query is turned into a numeric fingerprint of its meaning (an embedding, made by sending your words to OpenAI) and compared with the fingerprints of every passage. How search works explains this in plain language, and the Privacy Policy says what is kept.
• Topic tags. Each talk and article carries a few topics from a reviewed list of about 2,500 subjects. A model picks which ones apply, or they were carried over from labels the source already had, and a few of the picks are wrong. Tags help you narrow a search; they are not a judgment about the document. The scriptures and the Apocrypha are not tagged. See Topic pages.

Independent

Latter-day Search is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Quoted material remains the property of its owners and is shown for study and reference. There is more on the About page and in the Terms of Service.