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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

#221

Post by sevenzero »

keiferski wrote: post #208

The concept of an almanac seems relevant again: a yearly printed book with verified, accurate information. No manipulation at a later date, no AI hallucinations, etc. The most famous one was probably Benjamin Franklin’s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Richard%27s_Almanack Paper encyclopedias might make a comeback for the same reason.

> a yearly printed book with verified, accurate information

Seems difficult to produce nowadays as even well researched topics are constantly attacked. Climate change papers as a small example.

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

#223

Post by t0bia_s »

ChiMan wrote: post #196

AI will kill the internet because it is killing the incentive to make it. It is an industrial-strength example of why we don’t allow stealing.

It depends on filed. As documentary photographer it motivates me even more to capture authentic images of life around me. I don't care about remixing, because that is not what makes documentary photography valuable.

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

#224

Post by GreenVulpine »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #184
onli wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave search works really well, I haven't switched to Google search for months.

If I recall correctly Brave scrapes the web via their users, cannot be individually disallowed in robots.txt and Brandon Eich is conversing in a pretty hostile manner in every thread about him or his company.

[dead]

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

#225

Post by chrka »

hliyan wrote: post #213
ChiMan wrote: post #196

AI will kill the internet because it is killing the incentive to make it. It is an industrial-strength example of why we don’t allow stealing.

Recently, I had some ideas I would normally just put up on a blog, in the public domain for anyone to develop on top of. Now, I'm feeling slightly reluctant because an LLM will ingest it, remix it and serve it in response to a query by some unimaginative individual who will either conclude that they are smart, or that LLMs are capable of original thought, or both. And they will have no clue where the idea originated…

That's exactly why my previous public GitHub repo is now private.

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

#226

Post by neuropacabra »

chrka wrote: post #225
hliyan wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently, I had some ideas I would normally just put up on a blog, in the public domain for anyone to develop on top of. Now, I'm feeling slightly reluctant because an LLM will ingest it, remix it and serve it in response to a query by some unimaginative individual who will either conclude that they are smart, or that LLMs are capable of original thought, or both. And they will have no clue where the idea originated…

That's exactly why my previous public GitHub repo is now private.

So only GitHub Copilot can read it then? Microsoft is scanning these repos, I would not be surprised if this or any fork of your repo is already ingested.

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

#227

Post by mittensc »

Gigachad wrote: post #216
mittensc wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

perhaps this would not be a problem if google did not directly monetize AI Slop... for that matter why even include AI crap in search.

The Google conspiracy has been getting shared for long before AI slop came in to the picture. The fact is that SEO people got too good at their jobs and filled the search results with junk.

Google can properly classify email spam.

They should be able to fight this as well.

Problem is they are the ones funding the poor quality spam and they're in turn profiting by taking money from advertisers.

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

#228

Post by zombot »

jononor wrote: post #146
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™.)

AI seems to be on the same trajectory? Search was very useful in the start also, until it became entrenched. Then search placement became a target, and they are just focusing on extracting rents. All way paying the content providers zero or near-zero. And with years of that dynamic, we end up where we are now. It was the same with "social media". The same will happen with AI. AI is a power for more enshittification -…

It's definitely temporary. Remember there are no ad blockers for LLMs.

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

#229

Post by sgt »

wickedsight wrote: post #181
sgt wrote: post #153

Funny, I was just thinking this morning that Google searches are absolutely horrible these days. It's like it has amnesia, a lot of recent history seems to be just gone. Especially on non US specific sites too.

About 15 years ago, I won a phone in a contest. Last week I tried to find information about it, but I couldn't. No AI, nor Google could find anything the contest I won it in. When people say "the internet is forever" that can certainly be true, but it isn't for everything.

That reminds me - my wife had a friend who was killed by a shark (no joke). There were newspaper articles, but Google has completely forgotten about this and the newspapers are often behind a paywall, changed their URL's or simply the article vanished from those sites as well, which certainly doesn't help.

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

#230

Post by lopis »

My personal anecdote is that I used to search for "xyz nutrition" quite often on Google. It used to provide a data table with lots of information. Sure, nutritional information is hard to get right, but at least that data was consistent.

Now Google just gives you an AI answer with random values pulled from blogs and Reddit. It's almost always blatantly incorrect. I genuinely can't understand why Google would destroy its most valuable search features. Disclaimer: I work for Ecosia, so I know for a fact that users really value these search widgets, and it was often cited as a reason they couldn't leave Google.

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