As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by OCTAGRAM » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:51 AM UTC

exo762 wrote: post #290

robocat wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The failure of the GPL is that you can't force anyone to collaborate and share if they don't really want to. Failure of the GPL? How can you even put those words next to each other? GPL is an amazing success. It took software out of hands of SV / VC / corpo crowd and put it where it should be - users.

For many years GNAT Community Edition has used GPL, including its library. That greatly boosted Ada programming language domination over planet and is a good reference for everyone else to also choose GPL for everything if they struggle at dominating. Tears of joy when programmers got to know that standard library in GNAT CE was licensed under GPL.

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

#362

Post by inigyou » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:51 AM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #217

sph wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet has been shrinking massively. My earliest experiences with the Internet were discovering the world of hobby OS dev around the turn of the millennium, when I chanced upon someone’s personal website talking about their OS, with source code and screenshots and dedicated forum. My mind was blown. I spent two years finding hundreds of small websites dedicated to the topic, hung out on IRC communities with oth…

Well, just as the "internet" supplanted newspapers, magazines (gosh those classic gaming mags), and broadcast television for many people, and how the newspapers replaced the town criers before them, why shouldn't the "internet" be supplanted by a more accessible medium? Why should I have to suffer through Fandom raping me with screen-obscuring banners and "PLEASE ALLOW ADS" just to make some sense of fucking Warhamme…

Popular wikis such as Minecraft and Runescape have successfully migrated away from Fandom. Note that Fandom leaves behind the outdated old wiki and refuses to allow deletion because it drives their revenue. After a few years, the Fandom wiki is severely out of date and loses traffic.

What we actually need is a browser that filters out bullshit.

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

#363

Post by account42 » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:52 AM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #82

After publishers successfully sued the Internet Archive over its digital lending program, calling it unauthorized copying No. The court specifically determined that the Internet Archive was guilty of unauthorized copying. It was not simply an unfounded or unproven allegation. The Authors Guild, the National Writers Union, the European Writers Council, and the Society of Authors in the UK all came out against the Inte…

I agree that IA should have never done CDL but for the opposite reason: They should have never embraced DRM. Either make things available unrestricted and be prepared to defend or don't release it at all. People being unable to loan works during the pandemic may have just been the push we needed to get more people to see the ridiculous onesidedness of todays copyright laws.

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

#364

Post by ghm2199 » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:52 AM UTC

My sister, a journalist, mentioned to me that she only uses google search because she had learned how to get information typically only Google indexed in the country she lives in, in a way it was not exposed on chat bots. She often has to search for information like Old govt forms released as public record with a fixed a certain format photo scanned into a pdf and indexed by Google were often on the second page of the search and beyond. But they are there. She knew how the forms looked and what bigrans and trigrams matching a certain part of form for a certain piece of information to search for and Google search has it. Like an official order on a tender notice for some government department which is no longer in the .gov.* website gave her the official's name and then she could track down who to contact in an office... ChatGPT and other bots don't have it. Some how all these government documents became part of the government record and are the key for her to do her job.

I sincerely hope google wont stop indexing that stuff just because of a PM in search "de/re-prioritizing" ranking in a way that makes this impossible.

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

#365

Post by inigyou » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:52 AM UTC

matkoniecz wrote: post #256

armchairhacker wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi

They only repackage what Google et all returns. Or have they started own indexing?

They use a mixture of sources. Some HNers like to get very angry because one of the sources is Yandex, which is Russian.

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

#366

Post by inigyou » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:53 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #206

ehnto wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsurprisingly all search engines seem to be struggling with AI content sites as well. It's rare to get human articles, sometimes rare to even get authorative websites. It's frequently a bot site with a plausible enough name like, potterspainterly.com or medhealthdirect or something with oddly specific articles written in the last year.

This is the root problem. The idea that Google is deliberately sabotaging search seems far less likely than the idea that the internet is mostly garbage and SEO slop.

Google won't index my blog but has no problem indexing AI slop site number 9001. The problem is Google and it's a policy choice.

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

#367

Post by prolly97 » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:53 AM UTC

erfgh wrote: post #341

AI has killed reading-anything-written-after-AI for me. Due to this effect it is probably the worst invention in human history or pre-history.

You're comparing almost three millennia of text, to a couple of years worth of text. Let's see this play out. Plato also threw shade on writing. Which is an invention that turned out alright for humanity, imho. Maybe it'll turn out that we can push through to a yet-unknown-but-better state, as we've so far done, rather than relying on just going back to a previous state that we were content with.

Sorry for the somewhat sarcastic tone. But the hyperbolism deserved it.

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

#368

Post by inigyou » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:54 AM UTC

gspr wrote: post #161

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.

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…

You need to get over your Russophobia, because Kagi is actually good. Or else make your own Yandex.

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

#369

Post by inigyou » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:56 AM UTC

matkoniecz wrote: post #262

drysine wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's no way I'm – directly or indirectly – buying Russian products Why not?

In my case: Russian state is my direct enemy and most likely to invade my country. And would do it if they would consider success likely. Previous wars with Russia were obnoxious with very bad consequences, so I dislike idea of even very indirectly funding them. And I support actions that are harmful to Russian economy, also when they are harmful to me - as long as it is not too badly balanced. As this is much cheape…

I think at this point Russia is failing so hard they don't need a 100% boycott any more. 99.9% is enough.

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

#370

Post by inigyou » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:56 AM UTC

account42 wrote: post #363

ilamont wrote: post #82

After publishers successfully sued the Internet Archive over its digital lending program, calling it unauthorized copying No. The court specifically determined that the Internet Archive was guilty of unauthorized copying. It was not simply an unfounded or unproven allegation. The Authors Guild, the National Writers Union, the European Writers Council, and the Society of Authors in the UK all came out against the Inte…

I agree that IA should have never done CDL but for the opposite reason: They should have never embraced DRM. Either make things available unrestricted and be prepared to defend or don't release it at all. People being unable to loan works during the pandemic may have just been the push we needed to get more people to see the ridiculous onesidedness of todays copyright laws.

And secretly upload all the files to Anna's Archive.