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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

#31

Post by nixonpjoshua »

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…

Are you sure the lack of advertising isn't long term feasible? It seems to me that AI models have proven themselves to be something consumers ARE willing to pay a subscription - or even pay per use/token for.

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

#32

Post by flinux »

I see only one simple solution (though we should discuss the more complex ones): if Google directly answers a search query, then it must be held accountable for it, for better or for worse, and therefore assume all the benefits and (legal) liabilities that this entails

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

#33

Post by dylan604 »

t-writescode wrote: post #29
qudat wrote: post #25

Funny as I just cancelled my Kagi sub to get the Gemini ai pro sub. The deal was too good to pass up

Kagi does have AI too, for what it’s worth. I found it pretty damn good, but I wish I could give them more money. I have a year subscription so I’m stuck without being able to give them *anything* until it’s done.

Sign up for another account?

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

#34

Post by snapplebobapple »

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…

its pretty good with logs too. i mostly paste a few pages i suspect hace a problem in them and let it go to town. its almost always correct and is way faster than me

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

#35

Post by bitwize »

ElProlactin wrote: post #19

There's too much going on in this article and while I think some of the points are valid, others go too far. A lot of the "cultural record" the author refers to is just digital junk. Random digital content that very few people care about, if we're being honest. Trying to hoard every bit of digital information ever produced is not the same thing as preserving "culture". Case in point: > Even the increasing use of ephe…

On the other hand, when modern archaeologists discover "Claudius has a small dick" graffiti on the side of some God-forsaken wall in Pompeii, they're fascinated. The presence of such graffiti adds color and texture to the civilization inhabited by Virgil and Ovid. What's just disposable background noise to us may provide context into how we lived and thought to our far-future descendants.

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

#36

Post by t-writescode »

dylan604 wrote: post #33
t-writescode wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi does have AI too, for what it’s worth. I found it pretty damn good, but I wish I could give them more money. I have a year subscription so I’m stuck without being able to give them *anything* until it’s done.

Sign up for another account?

That is an option for sure, but a very disappointing one. And it comes with a meaningful danger of ending up with 2 subscriptions: one yearly and one monthly. They really, really need to finish their “pay as you go” system. I don’t know why it’s not done yet and there’s been no word about it to my knowledge.

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

#37

Post by Terr_ »

bloaf wrote: post #12
georgemcbay wrote: post #3

From a user perspective, Google search is the most useful it has been in years, though that doesn't feel entirely like intentional improvement, just a lucky side effect of the move to "AI mode". And yes, if you take what the AI tells you at face value it could be wrong. But if you are aware of this and aware of the ways in which LLMs are likely to shit the bed, it is quicker to get from request to useful information…

As someone who regularly reads things online, then wants to read them again like 3 years later, Google has been monotonically declining in quality. Also I realized the other day how hard it is to find song lyrics for anything other than quite mainstream songs.

It used to be I could always find the quote I wanted from a book. Nowadays I need to keep my own copies...

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

#38

Post by peyton »

What’s come next for me has been much better. I use ChatGPT cranked to Pro with “extended” thinking to one-shot whatever I would’ve spent time looking into with Google. It’ll plan the whole sunset bike ride or promposal or whatever from TFA.

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

#39

Post by 8organicbits »

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…

Interesting, I've seen much better results on DDG. Most recently was the search: `site:feeds.bbci.co.uk inurl:rss.xml` which works on DDG but gives zero results on Google. As far as I can tell, Google just decided not to index these.

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

#40

Post by paxys »

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 rely on pre-2024 non-AI generated content?

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