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Google Declaring War on the Web
121–130 of 466 posts
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#122The AI answers provide tons of source links. At the end of the day, is it really all that different to provide a list of links, versus an answer or overview of a few paragraphs with links to lots of different higher-quality sources? I follow those source links all the time . Not just to "check sources" but because they provide a ton more detail. And the links are usually much better than what I'll get with regular ke…
> is it really all that different to provide a list of links
Probably not, but I don't like change.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#123I feel like AI has gotten to the point where the message is: If you want to make something (art/code/music/writing) you can do it for your own enjoyment, but you aren't allowed to make money from it anymore; only the large corporations can make money from content. If you do release something creative, it'll just be fed back into the machine to be copied over and over.
As someone who simultaneously makes music professionally, and works in IT professionally, it has been really interesting watching GenAI unfold, and the diverging cultures around it. It is almost like the world is splitting into two "societies": 1. One that loves AI + Big Business + very fast Innovation and disruption 2. One that loves Artisanal work + Small Business + slower but more sustainable innovation I personal…
I'm not too worried about it because the first segment of society is doomed to be 'good but never great.'
AI lacks the ability to identify greatness because it's trained on the output of the average person who also lacks this ability.
It's going to create a new elite class of people who have good taste and the masses who have bad taste. Many current elites will end up with the masses. They may retain their wealth on paper, but it will be a cheap, low-quality existence but they will be convinced it's luxury.
I think eventually, everyone will get what they want, but not everyone will get what they need.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#124I feel like AI has gotten to the point where the message is: If you want to make something (art/code/music/writing) you can do it for your own enjoyment, but you aren't allowed to make money from it anymore; only the large corporations can make money from content. If you do release something creative, it'll just be fed back into the machine to be copied over and over.
As someone who simultaneously makes music professionally, and works in IT professionally, it has been really interesting watching GenAI unfold, and the diverging cultures around it. It is almost like the world is splitting into two "societies": 1. One that loves AI + Big Business + very fast Innovation and disruption 2. One that loves Artisanal work + Small Business + slower but more sustainable innovation I personal…
I predict mixtapes, with the operative word being tapes, make a big comeback.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#125We abrogated getting traffic to our websites to Google long ago. Mostly because Google was so good at it that the alternatives became significantly less useful. Now that Google is focusing on becoming 'self contained', so to speak, we should find a better way to drive traffic to websites. Ideally one that's not under the control of a single corporation. Anyone miss StumbleUpon?
An open way to trade, store, and export lists of websites in a way that works seamlessly on desktop and mobile browsers would be pretty neat.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least for art - I don't think you'll find anyone who actually enjoys art hanging up anything produced by AI on their walls. For these kinds of "customers", they could equally easily frame & hang up a poster of the Mona Lisa. Artists are not at threat, if anything, AI makes original artworks more precious & enjoyable.
That's assuming that the only market is stuff people are hanging up. The games industry, one that already takes advantage of its workers, is going to love this to the detriment of really passionate artists who love their craft and industry.
Lots of illustrator jobs for businesses too
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#127Kind of curious how it would pan out, if there was a government enforced meta tag one could add to signal what the data could be used for - for example “no-ai”. That would allow people to still let Google to access their site, but restrict its usage. Similar for open source projects on GitHub, etc.
> government enforced The thing everyone needs to ask before advocating for something "government enforced" is "what would happen if this was in the hands of a hostile government?" And then remember that (a) just because it's not hostile to you today, doesn't mean it won't be tomorrow, and (b) one man's "hostile" is another man's "utopia."
The thing everyone needs to ask before advocating for laissez faire is "what does a hostile and monopolistic search engine giant like Google gain from us doing nothing?"
And then remember that just because Google is not hostile to you today, doesn't mean it won't be tomorrow.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#128We abrogated getting traffic to our websites to Google long ago. Mostly because Google was so good at it that the alternatives became significantly less useful. Now that Google is focusing on becoming 'self contained', so to speak, we should find a better way to drive traffic to websites. Ideally one that's not under the control of a single corporation. Anyone miss StumbleUpon?
It feels strange there’s no decentralised search. I know this is likely to do with the nature of the problem, but that hasn’t stopped us from getting some wildly-unsuitable decentralised nonsense in the past.
Yacy exists but it lacks nodes.
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who simultaneously makes music professionally, and works in IT professionally, it has been really interesting watching GenAI unfold, and the diverging cultures around it. It is almost like the world is splitting into two "societies": 1. One that loves AI + Big Business + very fast Innovation and disruption 2. One that loves Artisanal work + Small Business + slower but more sustainable innovation I personal…
I'm not too worried about it because the first segment of society is doomed to be 'good but never great.' AI lacks the ability to identify greatness because it's trained on the output of the average person who also lacks this ability. It's going to create a new elite class of people who have good taste and the masses who have bad taste. Many current elites will end up with the masses. They may retain their wealth on…
Taste is subjective, authenticity is not. People in #2 want human created content, even if it's not as "good".
Re: Google Declaring War on the Web
#130This is such a basic take that totally misses the bigger picture of why Google made this move.
Google was forced to do this and it's a miracle of their slow organizational gears that they took so long to do it. So many people have already transitioned to using ChatGPT as a replacement for Google. All of this is driven by consumer behavior and the desire to "just get an answer" rather than having to wade through all the sources and try to figure out what is SEO slop vs what is actual reputable information. Google SERP results have been gamed by SEO slop for economically valuable search terms long before the rise of AI. ChatGPT simply solved a huge problem waiting for a solution.
From the web content creator's POV, there are to paths:
1. If you are merely a publisher and rely on eyeballs on ads to drive your own revenue, you are screwed. AI is going to ignore all the ads and only extract the content.
2. If however you are serving helpful information out of the goodness of your heart or if the content itself references a product or service which from which you will derive economic benefit from, you are still good.
I don't see this as a bad thing. Ads on websites were a necessary evil and will be seen as a relic of the first 30 years of the internet. Ads will not go away but they will just migrate to the application layer (youTube, LLM interfaces etc) that will provide a much more targeted experience. There will be winners and losers from this transition but that's normal and healthy.