Is DuckDuckGo still the best alternative at this point, or has Bing been toiling away in the dark to improve itself?

It baffles me how wholly some people are just accepting the complete erosion of the internet. I have lecturers at university, so theoretically educated people, who tell us point blank to plug any questions we have about weekly topics into ChatGPT. The respect I have for these teachers and their content is less than zero at this point.