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As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

thewalrus.ca

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Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

#101

Post by jefftk »

laughing_man wrote: post #95
jefftk wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the only visitors to websites are now LLM training bots then what incentive is there to publish anything new? I write because I have ideas I want to share, and whether that happens with LLMs as an intermediary isn't important to me.

There are different types of writing. If we depend on people writing because it's enjoyable at some level, we're going to lose writing that's important but also a bit tedious.

Of course! I do think we'd lose a lot of great writing if it went amateur-only. But my parent seemed to be saying the incentive would entirely disappear, so I wanted to give my perspective.

Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

#102

Post by no-name-here »

paxys wrote: post #40
comrade1234 wrote: post #7

I spent the last three days (off and on) using Gemini to configure my edge router 4 with my iOS devices on a vpn and it's been awesome. In the past I'd do a google search and read a few sources of documentation, do another google search and read another set of documentation. Now, Gemini aggregates multiple pages together so all of the work of reading source docs from multiple locations is now n a single step. Oh, I s…

All the information Gemini surfaced was created with human effort and published on the internet with the expectation that humans would visit the website and the creator would get some reward - advertising dollars, bragging rights, popularity, subscribers or whatever else. If the only visitors to websites are now LLM training bots then what incentive is there to publish anything new? For how long can we continue to re…

At least LLMs almost always transform the original - it usually isn’t as straightforward as “Here’s the original but without the ads that pay for it”.

But we already have the latter case that exists - ad blockers. Ad blockers literally serve up the word-for-word original content minus the ads.

Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

#103

Post by no-name-here »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #91
comrade1234 wrote: post #7

I spent the last three days (off and on) using Gemini to configure my edge router 4 with my iOS devices on a vpn and it's been awesome. In the past I'd do a google search and read a few sources of documentation, do another google search and read another set of documentation. Now, Gemini aggregates multiple pages together so all of the work of reading source docs from multiple locations is now n a single step. Oh, I s…

Yes. When my kids wonder why I don't hate AI the way they do I tell them it's because I hate Google even more. To be more precise, I hate the SEO shithole the internet has become, that Google serves up, that Google facilitated, indirectly created. (I really don't have any tears to shed if there is a death of the Corporate Internet™.)

Is there some search engine that you think could have become popular and not ended up with SEO optimization?

Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

#104

Post by karmakaze »

paxys wrote: post #40
comrade1234 wrote: post #7

I spent the last three days (off and on) using Gemini to configure my edge router 4 with my iOS devices on a vpn and it's been awesome. In the past I'd do a google search and read a few sources of documentation, do another google search and read another set of documentation. Now, Gemini aggregates multiple pages together so all of the work of reading source docs from multiple locations is now n a single step. Oh, I s…

All the information Gemini surfaced was created with human effort and published on the internet with the expectation that humans would visit the website and the creator would get some reward - advertising dollars, bragging rights, popularity, subscribers or whatever else. If the only visitors to websites are now LLM training bots then what incentive is there to publish anything new? For how long can we continue to re…

Funny, I published information in the hopes that humans would benefit from it. If it happens to be through collective intelligence of LLMs I'm ok with that--even more so if through open models.

Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

#105

Post by arcfour »

laughing_man wrote: post #96
comrade1234 wrote: post #7

I spent the last three days (off and on) using Gemini to configure my edge router 4 with my iOS devices on a vpn and it's been awesome. In the past I'd do a google search and read a few sources of documentation, do another google search and read another set of documentation. Now, Gemini aggregates multiple pages together so all of the work of reading source docs from multiple locations is now n a single step. Oh, I s…

I've run into major problems with LLMs as I maintain my home Linux systems. If I just copied commands they list, I would have a near 100% failure rate, as most of the information they have has been gleaned from forum posts that are years out of date. They're a good jumping off point, but I need to delve into the original sources just like I did when I used Google.

What on earth LLM are you using and do you tell it which distro/version of Linux they are supposed to be working with + give them access to web search or man pages? I haven't had this issue in like a year and a half.

Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

#106

Post by badestrand »

dualvariable wrote: post #99
JKCalhoun wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. When my kids wonder why I don't hate AI the way they do I tell them it's because I hate Google even more. To be more precise, I hate the SEO shithole the internet has become, that Google serves up, that Google facilitated, indirectly created. (I really don't have any tears to shed if there is a death of the Corporate Internet™.)

They're probably going to figure out how to aggressively monetize and enshittify LLMs at some point. We're likely at the "golden age" of LLM-assisted web searching and summarization. Hopefully open models keep it cracked open, but expecting enshittification is always the safe bet these days.

For the free to use LLMs, for sure. But if I pay $20 monthly, why should they enshittify it?

Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

#107

Post by archagon »

badestrand wrote: post #106
dualvariable wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're probably going to figure out how to aggressively monetize and enshittify LLMs at some point. We're likely at the "golden age" of LLM-assisted web searching and summarization. Hopefully open models keep it cracked open, but expecting enshittification is always the safe bet these days.

For the free to use LLMs, for sure. But if I pay $20 monthly, why should they enshittify it?

Because that’s what always happens? Because their raison d’etre is to squeeze you dry?

Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

#108

Post by brikym »

a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #58
novafunc wrote: post #5

I occasionally use Google Search when DuckDuckGo fails to give me relevant. Almost always, Google has better results. Though I can find its AI answers annoying aggressive. I'll look up like two search terms and the AI will bullshit multiple paragraphs out of despite having zero context of what I am looking for. DuckDuckGo seems to have detection of whether it should give an AI answer. And it allows you to have more g…

That was true until a few months ago. Now, it almost never has relevant results, and I've given up on it.

It seemed like Google was good ten+ years ago and then gradually trended towards being rotten around 2020-2022. In those days blogspam was king. I want a cooking recipe and it would show me a life story. Or I wanted a OG web game but a link farm would come up top. I think there are leaked internal comms where they discuss nerfing search results to pump engagement and ads impressions. No doubt it would boost ad bids too if businesses couldn't be found organically.

Around that time Bing and DDG were actually better. Then LLM's came along and they started to take things seriously again. Maybe they think the OpenAI threat has abated enough to begin enshitification cycle 2.0.

Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

#109

Post by moralestapia »

comrade1234 wrote: post #7

I spent the last three days (off and on) using Gemini to configure my edge router 4 with my iOS devices on a vpn and it's been awesome. In the past I'd do a google search and read a few sources of documentation, do another google search and read another set of documentation. Now, Gemini aggregates multiple pages together so all of the work of reading source docs from multiple locations is now n a single step. Oh, I s…

You deserve what's coming for you.

Re: As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

#110

Post by laughing_man »

arcfour wrote: post #105
laughing_man wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've run into major problems with LLMs as I maintain my home Linux systems. If I just copied commands they list, I would have a near 100% failure rate, as most of the information they have has been gleaned from forum posts that are years out of date. They're a good jumping off point, but I need to delve into the original sources just like I did when I used Google.

What on earth LLM are you using and do you tell it which distro/version of Linux they are supposed to be working with + give them access to web search or man pages? I haven't had this issue in like a year and a half.

By default I use Leo, and I do specify the distro. I tried to qualify by version, but when I do that I lose out on a lot of correct information for things that haven't changed in awhile.
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