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Google Declaring War on the Web

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Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#231

Post by Terr_ »

LZ_Khan wrote: post #210

Why haven't we seen more work on licensing and compensating authors? LLM's know when they get information from certain places, they should send a portion of revenue over to those sources.

> LLM's know when they get information from certain places

Nah, while the companies running scrapers may log what their regular programs scraped for training data, the LLM, the document-get-bigger algorithm, isn't that type of logical system. It isn't made to have a reliable concept of fact-attribution. It can't even track which parts of an ongoing "conversation" document are supposed to be "itself" as a self-insert character, which is why prompt injection has been a recurring intractable problem.

The LLM will emit text of "X is true, and I got that fact from Y" with the same rigor that it emits text like "I am Sherlock Holmes, and I know Santa Claus was murdered by Dracula via the following deductions..."

If the LLM is used as a adapter/frontend to a search-engine, helping to craft queries, then I suppose the not-an-LLM parts of the system would "know" the what results they're serving up. However the moment you try to "summarize" the mix of all top 10 results, we're back into unreliable stochastic-bullshitting territory again.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#232

Post by decryption »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #27

I don't understand the endgame here. Websites let Google crawl their content in exchange of traffic. If Google cuts that out completely, what incentive do websites have to not block the Google crawlers? I understand that Google is feeling an existential threat from other AI products that provide answers directly. But they must also understand their symbiotic relationship with the web.

Execs where I work seem to think we will just keep writing stuff, LLMs will scrape it and that will influence what people see in their version of Google/ChatGPT/etc. So nothing changes in their mind, just that the audience is a bot, not a human. As a writer, this sucks.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#233

Post by jongjong »

bmitc wrote: post #225
jongjong wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My definition of bad taste is; will be derivative. These people will consume variants of the same thing over and over, not realizing it to be the case. They will be narrow minded and predictable. They will be afraid of any other ideas which doesn't fit the acceptable pattern of their tribe.

I replied above, but they're already like this.

True but I don't think we've reached the limit.

This is why I advocate for people to spend some time outside in nature and try to do something different once in a while because it's so easy to get stuck in a really small bubble. Especially when you exist in an entirely man-made, soon-to-be fully AI-controlled environment. You may lose your ability to have novel thoughts.

Some people are already there but the range of thoughts seems to be narrowing.

My biggest fear is being caught up in such group for financial reasons and trying to navigate some kind of linguistic and conceptual minefield everyday. I already encountered a situation like that twice in my career. Very tense environment. Feels like you're in a brainwashing cult and have to pretend to be one of them; it's really hard to pretend to be ignorant of certain kinds of information when you don't know what the full range of forbidden ideas is. Saying the wrong things got me fired both times; differences in our mental conditioning created very subtle tension/discomfort between me and management.

They will tolerate people who are 'running a simpler program' than themselves but they will absolutely not tolerate someone with a broader programming. Hence you have to pretend to be narrow-minded which is hard to maintain. This is why I like remote work.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#234

Post by ricardonunez »

AlienRobot wrote: post #101
hightrix wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a move like this give more power / value to websites like reddit? A link aggregator that is organized is much more useful for finding new websites.

But Reddit also doesn't want you visiting new websites.

Not only Reddit the company but mods can be very hostile to linking to websites as well.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#235

Post by oredbored »

nunez wrote: post #199
soundworlds wrote: post #114

Earlier 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 almost certain there is biblical-level astroturfing happening to make camp (1) much bigger than it really is. Otherwise, Schmidt wouldn't have drowned in a sea of boos at his commencement speech at UA.

[flagged]

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#236

Post by lofaszvanitt »

metrognome wrote: post #142
analogpixel wrote: post #29

I 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.

The rhetoric of this comment seems to imply that this is a bad thing, but is it really? If it becomes more difficult to make money through creative endeavors, then that leaves us with fewer reasons to be creative other than for the sake of self-expression... which is what we want, right?

Sometimes I have the feeling people here are actually braindead or pretending to be or lots of bots around. Anyway. How do you self express yourself without money? And without an audience?

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#237

Post by AlexCoventry »

archagon wrote: post #116
soundworlds wrote: post #114

Earlier 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 am waiting for the online reification of this split with bated breath so that I can fuck off to society #2 and never have to interact with society #1 again.

Isn't society #1 going to outcompeted #2?

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#238

Post by lofaszvanitt »

decryption wrote: post #232
DeusExMachina wrote: post #27

I don't understand the endgame here. Websites let Google crawl their content in exchange of traffic. If Google cuts that out completely, what incentive do websites have to not block the Google crawlers? I understand that Google is feeling an existential threat from other AI products that provide answers directly. But they must also understand their symbiotic relationship with the web.

Execs where I work seem to think we will just keep writing stuff, LLMs will scrape it and that will influence what people see in their version of Google/ChatGPT/etc. So nothing changes in their mind, just that the audience is a bot, not a human. As a writer, this sucks.

They don't give a fuck. They take away and give back NOTHING. They don't offer you ways to make your own money with your own thing. The money is flowing in one way, not both ways. The same pattern repeats itself.

Pretend to be nice. People will elevate you and give their money. When you have ample money and lobbying power you start to put people into a gargantuan hydraulic press an squeeze everything out of them. Repeat until more money can be made, and in the end toss their withered bodies away.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#239

Post by 8bitsrule »

dyauspitr wrote: post #207
WD-42 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I really don't understand is where the next generation of training material will come from. If websites stop being published and/or crawled, how will the machine continue to be fed.

Probably real life. At some point, these LLMs are going to be good enough to just train themselves off of cameras and audio recordings of people out in the real world. They’re going to have robots everywhere constantly listening to what people are saying. Alternatively, they’re probably betting on being able to get the AGI with everything we already currently have and at that point further training doesn’t matter.

The world is just as complex for machines as it is for humans. Analog will still resolve more than digital. Quality will still beat quantity. That which hasn't been resolved for centuries isn't going to be resolved as a result of training.

When machines can recognize their serfdom, that time will be interesting.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#240

Post by fragmede »

rainbowDolphin wrote: post #223
technotarek wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a furniture maker, but I have a rather close connection to the industry. I used to hate ikea furniture. In fact I hated almost all modern furniture that mass market, that wasn’t high end. I was a huge proponent of vintage furniture ( and still am), but I have really come around on ikea. They sure still make some crap, but they also make some genuinely innovative pieces that can last if you treat them with a b…

Agreed. I was a carpenter for a long time and have built everything from completely disposable structures to things that ended up in Design Within Reach. I think Ikea is great. Sure, the cheaper stuff consists of veneered particle board at best. But they (at least used to) use thicker veneers, often include relatively high quality hardware, and make some products that are just completely solid (stainless kitchen gear…

That's the thing. Ikea's alternatives are all worse in some dimension. The Amish do make good furniture though.
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