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G/O media will make more AI-generated stories despite critics

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Re: G/O media will make more AI-generated stories despite critics

#51

Post by gwright »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #47
gwright wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it confuses things immensely to anthropomorphize large language models. LLMs don't lie or tell the truth they just spit out text that is in alignment with the training model. Don't give them agency they don't have.

This is to fight back against the term "hallucinate" that everyone on here is using

That is an interesting point. I'm not sure why, but "hallucinate" doesn't bother me as much as "lie". Maybe it is because of all the ancillary baggage that "lie" has related to our current culture wars (lies, misinformation, disinformation, gaslighting, etc.)

I just asked (another anthropomorphic verb) ChatGPT for a better word and it came up with "fabricate".

> The term "fabricate" could be used to describe AI's tendency to generate fictitious information. This term has less anthropomorphic connotations than "hallucinate" and directly refers to the creation or construction of something, which could be a suitable representation for what an AI system does when it generates false data. Other alternatives could be "synthesize" or "generate," depending on the specific context.

Re: G/O media will make more AI-generated stories despite critics

#52

Post by BizarroLand »

rchaud wrote: post #46

As someone who avoided the Twitter firehose like the plague, I've noticed the slow, then rapid decline of traditional 'websites' over the past decade as they succumbed to SEO keyword optimization and driving traffic from social networks. . Due to the incentives of the players involved, there is no solution that would lead to a neater, less blogspam-infested internet. The concept of a 'website' as Tim Berners Lee and…

You're on this site talking to generally smart people who are not paying for the privilege of using this site complaining that everything good on the internet is already paywalled.

If you don't know how to find what you're looking for, just ask. Paywalls aren't a real thing that have to be obeyed, nor is there ever only one spigot for any digital fountain.

Re: G/O media will make more AI-generated stories despite critics

#53

Post by gwright »

homami wrote: post #36
gwright wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it confuses things immensely to anthropomorphize large language models. LLMs don't lie or tell the truth they just spit out text that is in alignment with the training model. Don't give them agency they don't have.

I don't lie either. I just spit out words that is in alignment with my mental model for optimizing my future.

Maybe you are a large language model?

Re: G/O media will make more AI-generated stories despite critics

#54

Post by rchaud »

acomjean wrote: post #37
namelosw wrote: post #32

It's obvious that people would flood Google with generated content. But it's hard to tell if it would kill Google or somehow make Google works better. There's certain dynamics to the game and nobody can say for sure. As for why it might not make Google worse, just think about YouTube algorithms: 1. One good video is substantially better than hundreds of bad videos, or thousands even. 2. Clickbait works in terms of ge…

I think it makes it worse. There is only so much it can index. I was searching a municipal website that had a bunch of pdfs. Instead of downloading them I'll I figured I'd sure the "site:__" to look through them. It didn't work. It seemed to index only 3 of those files. sigh. One of the appeals of using "chat bot" is you get an answer without all the ad crap the web delivers. I think thats the appeal of stackoverflow…

Google will index whatever is generated in your sitemap.xml file. The "site:" filter isn't going to show them all.

Re: G/O media will make more AI-generated stories despite critics

#56

Post by BizarroLand »

bobthepanda wrote: post #44
worldofmatthew wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen SEO spam sites that have been running for years without Google doing anything about them. Google could do a lot better.

Are they doing nothing, or is the current state of the spam arms race resulting in running just to stay in the same place? And would anyone be better once they became the primary target?

They are standing in the middle of it and picking everyone's digital pockets while claiming that they can't possibly help in the fight because it's too hard to pick a side. In an alternate universe they would be a Nazi Switzerland.

Google makes money off of SEO spam. They get ad revenue from sellers and then give some pocket change to the scammers from the sellers. All of the money goes through their hands first.

They're evil, they've sold whatever soul they might have had to the god of "money at any cost", and the current shitshow of their terrible search results is what you get when a soulless wreck is left to shamble the earth until its heart stops beating.

Re: G/O media will make more AI-generated stories despite critics

#57

Post by mr-wendel »

How new is this problem really?

For example, consider the example of Demand Media (e.g. https://variety.com/2013/biz/news/epic-fail-the-rise-and-fal...).

They invested quite a lot in cheap content generation and for a while it served them quite well. I struggle to imagine a scenario where lowering the cost of polluting would have made this strategy more viable.

Re: G/O media will make more AI-generated stories despite critics

#58

Post by readyplayernull »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #17

If AI can write articles that fool Google, Google can use AI to detect it. Heck, maybe there will be an AI model that specifically recognizes AI content and can be used to filter it out. A lot of electricity spent for nothing, but it's not like the human species hasn't been its own worst enemy since it appeared.

> maybe there will be an AI model that specifically recognizes AI content and can be used to filter it out

Expect lots of false positives and honest businesses being affected. How much should the filter threshold be tuned to smash more bots instead of real people?

Re: G/O media will make more AI-generated stories despite critics

#59

Post by nickfromseattle »

My understanding of the algorithm is that Google uses UX metrics to stack rank content. I believe this because I focus on creating the most relevant & most valuable page of content Google could show for the keywords I want to rank for, and skip all of the backlinks and technical BS stuff.

This strategy of avoiding backlinks and technical BS & focus 100% on content quality has worked really well for me.

If you think about it, Google has all of the data to do this:

- Android

- Chrome

- Google Analytics

All of the big platforms use UX metrics to influence reach - LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, even YouTube uses UX metrics to influence reach, why not Google search?

It seems like people using AI see some limited amount of success, for some limited amount of time before losing their rankings.

If I was Google, I would let people think their AI content is working for a little bit, then de-index their website to demotivate + scare webmasters away from using AI.

Re: G/O media will make more AI-generated stories despite critics

#60

Post by anyonecancode »

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #21
barbariangrunge wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those 60 people can have a new job: fact checking the lies that the new ais produce

Why would they? Google sees more content so you now have more nodes connected to you, so you appear higher. Whether it's true or false doesn't matter to Google.

This seems similar to, maybe even a restatement of, the "how do you detect AI-written content" problem.

If someone could provide a way to programmatically detect accurate, high quality content, it would solve the SEO spam problem. It would also as a side-effect solve the AI-content problem. Or maybe it's the other way around and it would solve the AI-content problem and as a side effect the SEO spam problem. Well, they'll soon be the exact same thing, and either way I'm not sure it's solvable.

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