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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

#251

Post by chrisjj »

ElFitz wrote: post #112
smackeyacky wrote: post #111

Gemini has been a hilarious companion to my while I fixed the balance shaft chain guides in my old Mitsubishi triton (mighty max for US readers). First it told me I could just remove said balance shaft chain as an emergency repair. Sorry Gemini, it also drives the oil pump. Then it told me I could remove the water contaminated oil caused by removing the timing case by filling the crankcase with hot, soapy water and r…

Meanwhile, ChatGPT correctly diagnosed what was wrong with my plant from a single photo, identified which leaves I should cut, and annotated the picture showing where to cut and what not to touch. I honestly expected a made-up useless generated image that matched the idea but not the actual thing. Guess I’m still living in 2024.

What makes you think the chatbot's diagnosis is correct?

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

#253

Post by quantummagic »

zombot wrote: post #228
jononor wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're right, this is the best it will ever be. But there likely will be ad blockers for them -- local LLMs that filter for any brand placement, etc.

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

#255

Post by robocat »

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…

In modern times don't we all think that ideas are cheap: don't we all mostly regurgitate the same stock of them.

Have we yet lost the open ideals of university sharing? The core of open source?

The failure of the GPL is that you can't force anyone to collaborate and share if they don't really want to.

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

#256

Post by matkoniecz »

armchairhacker wrote: post #185
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.

Kagi

They only repackage what Google et all returns.

Or have they started own indexing?

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

#257

Post by frabcus »

satvikpendem wrote: post #85
amatecha wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deal will be great for now, while they lure you in and get you to drop the competition -- then they will raise prices later.

Then you cancel and go to another provider, rinse and repeat. This is already what is happening with streaming platforms.

Not after it consolidates, monopolises and enshittifies, no you can't.

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

#258

Post by agentcoops »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #170
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.

That's 100% correct. Since Google's "helpful content update" Webmasters get massive amounts of "Crawled, not indexed" reports for anything Google considers "more of the same" or "thin content". If you're not an authority on a subject, simply meaning: you already rank for similar content, or if you don't get links from more popular domains, your content is in the abyss. It's all under the guise of "We're fighting SPAM…

This is fascinating. I haven't really kept up with SEO for years, but was recently helping an academic publisher setup their web presence and ran into exactly this issue: Google was/is refusing to index the actual journal articles on the new site and they were moved into this liminal "Crawled, not indexed" state before vanishing entirely. Comically, it's now easier to get your content indexed and served with a visible link by ChatGPT than it is Google...

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

#259

Post by matkoniecz »

apothegm wrote: post #244
gspr wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're so horrible that I've started defaulting to their AI summaries. And I hate those summaries. It's just that the regular results are so terrible now, and seemingly getting worse at a noticeable pace. I used to not worry. I was sure that a competitor would come along and fix search. But the longer that's not happening, the more nervous I'm getting that we'll actually lose search. If a few more years pass in the…

How is Kagi indirectly Russian?

They are repackaging bunch of search engine results, including Yandex (and paying for it).

Yandex is Russian.

I would not describe it as Kagi being indirectly Russian.

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

#260

Post by mrweasel »

stringfood wrote: post #24
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…

no, no, no. you are supposed to romanticize the hunt for correct information /s

Even with the /s I think you misunderstand. If you just want to configure your router, then AI is neat. If you want to learn and understand what's going on in the router as you set it up, then being given the answers basically teaches you nothing.

It's the same reason why we don't give students the answers to things, we teach them to find the answers.

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