That’s one part of how the internet dies, there are others. For example: soon the vast majority of the content on the internet will have been created by bots (AI or not). Or even by malicious folks pushing narratives.
TLDR: not only the internet is becoming more annoying to use it is also constantly becoming less useful with worse content replacing everything that was ever good
And the problem with content created by bots is that it is usually made to not look like that was the case. Sometimes that’s not the problem like some random site with information about a video game can have all of its content generated automatically based on data extracted from that game. That is fine.
But other cases, specially with AI content, can be much worse. There was a recent example where some site with history content had generated some pages using an AI and that AI created a page about Scimitars which included information taken from Dungeons and Dragons, but presented then as historic facts.
And the main problem here is that the internet feeds on itself. Texts are copied from one site to another by non-AI bots. Some text created by AI in one site gets copied to multiple threads on reddit, hacker news, stack overflow, 4chan and all sorts of places. Places that are scanned by search engines and often picked as preferred search results by users.
Then Google these days try everything to make a larger profit from you. That includes “stealing” content from inside websites to display on top of the search results page - so that you never click away from the Google site. In order to do that more efficiently, they give preference to sites that allow this behavior over sites with actual better search results. Try googling “country in Africa with the letter K”.
So in the end all your search results will soon be stuff that was written by AI. And remember: AI doesn’t think. It won’t ever do. AI is just a robot role-playing as human.
When you see a comedian doing a Stephen Hawking impression, you don’t expect them to publish scientific papers, in fact you don’t pay any attention to what they actually say, because you know it’ll either be rubbish or just a repeat of something that Hawking had said before. AI is the same thing. It’ll never be intelligent, it’ll only get better at imitating humans, by looking at what humans say. And with their content taking over the internet, it’ll soon be imitating itself.
And the only memory of the golden years of the internet, will maybe be Wikipedia. Have you donated to them yet? Think about how many times you’ve used it and remember it has never shown an ad other than their pleas for donation. Please consider giving them a few bucks when you’ve some to spare.
I think you’re probably right but I also think that people will try to adopt by going back to the old forum model of access-restricted, highly moderated, trust-based spaces for individual topics instead of mega-aggregators like Reddit.
I think you might be right. Imagine a fediverse app that allows content creators to self-host videos. They get the generated revenue directly instead of going through the website, they get paid in direct relation to how many videos they serve, and when I see an ad there, I know I am effectively paying the content creator.
I mean, it has only one function. To deliver a dose of titillation, or a little high. To stroke you a little that way. And to manipulate you too, of course, indirectly. To get your attention. To advertise and such.
As opposed to communicating something, or illuminating a riddle, or something useful like that.
I think I’m 99% right here.
So the doom we’re looking at is a flood of mediocre titillation and manipulation.
Because it’s AI it’ll be dirt cheap. Therefore everybody with a commercial/political/advertising interest will use it in vast quantities all the time.
That’s one part of how the internet dies, there are others. For example: soon the vast majority of the content on the internet will have been created by bots (AI or not). Or even by malicious folks pushing narratives.
TLDR: not only the internet is becoming more annoying to use it is also constantly becoming less useful with worse content replacing everything that was ever good
And the problem with content created by bots is that it is usually made to not look like that was the case. Sometimes that’s not the problem like some random site with information about a video game can have all of its content generated automatically based on data extracted from that game. That is fine.
But other cases, specially with AI content, can be much worse. There was a recent example where some site with history content had generated some pages using an AI and that AI created a page about Scimitars which included information taken from Dungeons and Dragons, but presented then as historic facts.
And the main problem here is that the internet feeds on itself. Texts are copied from one site to another by non-AI bots. Some text created by AI in one site gets copied to multiple threads on reddit, hacker news, stack overflow, 4chan and all sorts of places. Places that are scanned by search engines and often picked as preferred search results by users.
Then Google these days try everything to make a larger profit from you. That includes “stealing” content from inside websites to display on top of the search results page - so that you never click away from the Google site. In order to do that more efficiently, they give preference to sites that allow this behavior over sites with actual better search results. Try googling “country in Africa with the letter K”.
So in the end all your search results will soon be stuff that was written by AI. And remember: AI doesn’t think. It won’t ever do. AI is just a robot role-playing as human.
When you see a comedian doing a Stephen Hawking impression, you don’t expect them to publish scientific papers, in fact you don’t pay any attention to what they actually say, because you know it’ll either be rubbish or just a repeat of something that Hawking had said before. AI is the same thing. It’ll never be intelligent, it’ll only get better at imitating humans, by looking at what humans say. And with their content taking over the internet, it’ll soon be imitating itself.
And the only memory of the golden years of the internet, will maybe be Wikipedia. Have you donated to them yet? Think about how many times you’ve used it and remember it has never shown an ad other than their pleas for donation. Please consider giving them a few bucks when you’ve some to spare.
I think the solution is to just return to the old web https://thewebisfucked.com/
I think you’re probably right but I also think that people will try to adopt by going back to the old forum model of access-restricted, highly moderated, trust-based spaces for individual topics instead of mega-aggregators like Reddit.
Maybe that’s just hopium and nostalgia though.
I think you might be right. Imagine a fediverse app that allows content creators to self-host videos. They get the generated revenue directly instead of going through the website, they get paid in direct relation to how many videos they serve, and when I see an ad there, I know I am effectively paying the content creator.
Content created by AI is only for entertainment.
I mean, it has only one function. To deliver a dose of titillation, or a little high. To stroke you a little that way. And to manipulate you too, of course, indirectly. To get your attention. To advertise and such.
As opposed to communicating something, or illuminating a riddle, or something useful like that.
I think I’m 99% right here.
So the doom we’re looking at is a flood of mediocre titillation and manipulation.
Because it’s AI it’ll be dirt cheap. Therefore everybody with a commercial/political/advertising interest will use it in vast quantities all the time.
I Google “country in Africa with the letter k” and don’t get what you mean.
For most folks now, Google shows the text from this link as the answer:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37145312#:~:text=While there are 54 recognized,new trivia facts like this.