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If we can find information by asking GenAI, who needs the Web?

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Re: If we can find information by asking GenAI, who needs the Web?

#11

Post by martin-t »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #2

> While the ecosystem in which the Web thrived had one colossal flaw, namely, Surveillance Capitalism,b it had a stable business model. That business model is now being threatened by GenAI Good. If there is one silver lining to generative AI, then it is that programmatic advertising will become less viable as a source of income. If the internet were to overnight become a place where it is impossible to make money via…

Or... we could just make advertising illegal[0].

It would be really nice to get rid of one parasitic zero-sum "industry" without feeding all intellectual output into a slop machine which resells it without credit or compensation.

[0]: https://simone.org/advertising/

Re: If we can find information by asking GenAI, who needs the Web?

#12

Post by Legend2440 »

trod1234 wrote: post #10
shortrounddev2 wrote: post #2

> While the ecosystem in which the Web thrived had one colossal flaw, namely, Surveillance Capitalism,b it had a stable business model. That business model is now being threatened by GenAI Good. If there is one silver lining to generative AI, then it is that programmatic advertising will become less viable as a source of income. If the internet were to overnight become a place where it is impossible to make money via…

Not good. Have you considered the second order effects of a breakdown of communications? Marketing and Advertising is about communicating a product to someone that may be interested in purchasing it. If Communications is jammed because AI slop has dominated the web, no marketing happens, no hiring happens, no purchases are made because no jobs. In short order (relatively speaking), you get deflationary collapse of al…

> In short order (relatively speaking), you get deflationary collapse of all human organization.

Lolol no, human organization would not collapse because web advertising went away.

Re: If we can find information by asking GenAI, who needs the Web?

#15

Post by tines »

hkon wrote: post #5
trod1234 wrote: post #3

It already has, and it will destroy quite a lot more before all is said and done. Fundamentally, it breaks the social and generational contracts needed for societal organization to operate. While these structures won't vanish overnight, the consequences are cascading failures that will produce dire outcomes the longer they are allowed to fester.

What contracts are those?

Credit where credit is due?

Re: If we can find information by asking GenAI, who needs the Web?

#17

Post by gerdesj »

kakokiyrvoooo wrote: post #8
shortrounddev2 wrote: post #2

> While the ecosystem in which the Web thrived had one colossal flaw, namely, Surveillance Capitalism,b it had a stable business model. That business model is now being threatened by GenAI Good. If there is one silver lining to generative AI, then it is that programmatic advertising will become less viable as a source of income. If the internet were to overnight become a place where it is impossible to make money via…

What happens when openai starts interjecting ads into chatgpt output?

You ask Chat to add some tags to its output, via your prompt. You get your browser to filter output that is not tagged properly.

Counter measures will need another LLM "AI" to filter out efforts to filter out ads from my prompts. However, when openai's adversary is their customer, my money is on me!

Re: If we can find information by asking GenAI, who needs the Web?

#18

Post by trod1234 »

hkon wrote: post #5
trod1234 wrote: post #3

It already has, and it will destroy quite a lot more before all is said and done. Fundamentally, it breaks the social and generational contracts needed for societal organization to operate. While these structures won't vanish overnight, the consequences are cascading failures that will produce dire outcomes the longer they are allowed to fester.

What contracts are those?

The contracts that the founders of the US constitution based the constitution on.

You may want to start with Leviathan, then move on to John Locke, Hobbes and Descartes. No post I make will ever substitute for a reading of those authors.

Re: If we can find information by asking GenAI, who needs the Web?

#19

Post by sho_hn »

trod1234 wrote: post #18
hkon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What contracts are those?

The contracts that the founders of the US constitution based the constitution on. You may want to start with Leviathan, then move on to John Locke, Hobbes and Descartes. No post I make will ever substitute for a reading of those authors.

You know we've lost when even the people who warn us of the coming AI apocalypse are too lazy to do so.

Re: If we can find information by asking GenAI, who needs the Web?

#20

Post by tines »

trod1234 wrote: post #10
shortrounddev2 wrote: post #2

> While the ecosystem in which the Web thrived had one colossal flaw, namely, Surveillance Capitalism,b it had a stable business model. That business model is now being threatened by GenAI Good. If there is one silver lining to generative AI, then it is that programmatic advertising will become less viable as a source of income. If the internet were to overnight become a place where it is impossible to make money via…

Not good. Have you considered the second order effects of a breakdown of communications? Marketing and Advertising is about communicating a product to someone that may be interested in purchasing it. If Communications is jammed because AI slop has dominated the web, no marketing happens, no hiring happens, no purchases are made because no jobs. In short order (relatively speaking), you get deflationary collapse of al…

> Marketing and Advertising is about communicating a product to someone that may be interested in purchasing it.

This is only what advertising is about for the advertisers.

For the other side of the coin, namely, the platforms that sell users to the advertisers, advertising is about capturing as much attention as possible in order to sell it. That means addiction, scams, sensationalism, lying, and preying on fear, greed, lust, and all the baser motives of a human being.

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