Ask HN: Will personal websites gain traction as AI content floods the web?

#1

Post by rsolva » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 9:08 PM UTC

Many of us has already experienced reading an article we believed to be of human origin, but in fact was written by an AI. As many posts on Twitter and the Fediverse has shown us, AIs can be hilariously inaccurate – it will happily tell us what it thinks we want to hear and invent stuff as it goes.

In this environment, where it gets harder to discern the veracity of information online, be it from newspapers, magazines and other types of information outlets, establishing trust becomes increasingly valuable.

Will this fact make us seek out more personal content from sources we can put a face and a name to? A personal web of trust that sharpens the line between content made by humans and AIs?

It might be to early to call it, but having pondered on these questions for a little while, it made me realize that my solution to this sea-change is to double down on collecting channels of information that verifies ownership, like personal websites, preferably on a domain name owned by that very person.

Maybe we could even make some kind of pact, a code of honor, a personal promise of integrity, that guarantees a site to contain 100% human generated content?

Re: Ask HN: Will personal websites gain traction as AI content floods the web?

#2

Post by JohnFen » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 9:20 PM UTC

> Will this fact make us seek out more personal content from sources we can put a face and a name to?

I've been mostly doing this for years now, because of the general decline in the quality of websites that has been going on for a long, long time.

> A personal web of trust that sharpens the line between content made by humans and AIs?

The problem, of course, is what you alluded to -- how can we know what's made by humans and what's made by AI? I think that my already limited use of the web is likely to decline to nearly zero because of that issue.

Re: Ask HN: Will personal websites gain traction as AI content floods the web?

#3

Post by rsolva » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #2

> Will this fact make us seek out more personal content from sources we can put a face and a name to? I've been mostly doing this for years now, because of the general decline in the quality of websites that has been going on for a long, long time. > A personal web of trust that sharpens the line between content made by humans and AIs? The problem, of course, is what you alluded to -- how can we know what's made by h…

> The problem, of course, is what you alluded to -- how can we know what's made by humans and what's made by AI? I think that my already limited use of the web is likely to decline to nearly zero because of that issue.

Do you not think that a web of trust could work as a bulwark against this trend? I imagine long-time bloggers that already have a good reputation can help seed trust by recommend other people they know personally and can vouch for.

Re: Ask HN: Will personal websites gain traction as AI content floods the web?

#4

Post by JohnFen » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

rsolva wrote: post #3

JohnFen wrote: post #2

> Will this fact make us seek out more personal content from sources we can put a face and a name to? I've been mostly doing this for years now, because of the general decline in the quality of websites that has been going on for a long, long time. > A personal web of trust that sharpens the line between content made by humans and AIs? The problem, of course, is what you alluded to -- how can we know what's made by h…

> The problem, of course, is what you alluded to -- how can we know what's made by humans and what's made by AI? I think that my already limited use of the web is likely to decline to nearly zero because of that issue. Do you not think that a web of trust could work as a bulwark against this trend? I imagine long-time bloggers that already have a good reputation can help seed trust by recommend other people they know…

Yes, but to a very limited degree. In order to be effective, it has to be a web of people who personally know the people they're vouching for, and I'd be less inclined to take the word of people too many hops out from me. I may trust my direct friends judgements, but I'll have lesser trust in the judgement of friends-of-friends, and so on.

But in any case, what it means is that I'll have a small "personal web" of sites, and that would be the entire webosphere to me. It's a bunker kind of situation, and pretty much the opposite of what the web really should be.

Re: Ask HN: Will personal websites gain traction as AI content floods the web?

#5

Post by Bob2077 » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 9:41 PM UTC

As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, it's likely that people will value human perspectives and personal connections even more. This may lead to a resurgence in personal websites, blogging, and other ways of sharing human experiences, opinions, and knowledge. In addition, it might encourage people to invest more in building their online presence and reputation, showcasing their expertise and credibility in their respective fields.

Re: Ask HN: Will personal websites gain traction as AI content floods the web?

#6

Post by rsolva » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

Bob2077 wrote: post #5

As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, it's likely that people will value human perspectives and personal connections even more. This may lead to a resurgence in personal websites, blogging, and other ways of sharing human experiences, opinions, and knowledge. In addition, it might encourage people to invest more in building their online presence and reputation, showcasing their expertise and credibility in…

This is how an AI would sum it up ;)

Re: Ask HN: Will personal websites gain traction as AI content floods the web?

#7

Post by ll_mama » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 10:19 PM UTC

Happy to disappoint you. But I started adding more content to my personal website which was really just a CV on a wordpress website… with the help of ChatGPT. It looks genuine and all the content is very tweaked. My calendar entry now has a task to write content alongside ChatGPT for an hour every week and schedule it to be posted randomly. Started getting some followers on LinkedIn because of it.

Re: Ask HN: Will personal websites gain traction as AI content floods the web?

#8

Post by surprisetalk » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 10:30 PM UTC

In my opinion, yes.

Over the past few months, I've been working hard to craft a distinct writing style.

If you look at my selected essays on my /about page, you'll see that I'm trying to do things that can't easily be copied. Or if they are copied, people might attribute the style back to me haha

[1] https://taylor.town/about

I also think it's going to be super important to foster genuine human-to-human connection as AI becomes more prevalent, so I'm starting a small tech conference!

Join us in Southern California this August! It's going to be a blast

[2] https://outland.sh

Re: Ask HN: Will personal websites gain traction as AI content floods the web?

#9

Post by donmcronald » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 10:45 PM UTC

Maybe, but only if there's a foolproof way of keeping the AI out.

Why would I want to write high quality content if it's going to be sucked up by some AI, mixed with other lesser quality content, and vomited onto unsuspecting users with part of the attribution given to me?

No thanks. I'm pretty much ready to flip the off switch on technology.

Re: Ask HN: Will personal websites gain traction as AI content floods the web?

#10

Post by pkamb » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 11:04 PM UTC

I would certainly use a search engine that weighted heavily against the current style of SEO articles and towards real blogs and good sites. The top links on Google are indistinguishable from AI articles as-is, so I don't think Google is interested in providing this service.