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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

#411

Post by randusername »

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.

The key question to me is whether AI only undermines the financial incentive to make internet content.

If nobody can expect to make money on the internet, that could be a good thing. But we won't get an indie-web authenticity utopia if people are still incentivized in other ways to filter their intellectual and cultural contributions to the internet through AI.

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

#412

Post by sgt »

matkoniecz wrote: post #259
apothegm wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I would not describe it as Kagi being indirectly Russian.

What do you mean? That Kagi is directly Russian?

Paying a russian provider isn't against the law and at some point we need to bring Russia back into the warmth of the West.

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

#413

Post by richie_adler »

embedding-shape wrote: post #332
bko wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really happy for you. It's disheartening how many people put off or choose not to have kids because they think some combination of climate disaster, famine, overpopulation, war or skynet will ensure a life of misery for their children. There's definitely a risk of over-thinking things. Just do things. You're not likely to regret it.

> There's definitely a risk of over-thinking things. Just do things. You're not likely to regret it. Agree, in general, people over-think a lot, and aren't "just doing things" enough, the world would be a better place if people acted more, over-think less. With that said, some decisions are more long-lasting and have a greater impact than others. I'm another child-less person, mainly because I guess I'm selfish enoug…

Thinking is NOT overrated. Most people go through life never doing it at all.

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

#414

Post by TonyAlicea10 »

Google switching to hallucinating AI summaries has been to me an absolutely shocking abdication of care for both their users and their own reputation.

It extends beyond search as well. I have had multiple incorrect Gmail summaries that, if I had only read them instead of the actual email, would have resulted in financial harm.

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

#415

Post by duskdozer »

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…

This is just papering over it individually, but https://github.com/iorate/ublacklist is the only thing that makes searching bearable for me now.

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

#416

Post by fragmede »

yeah, but the article sucks. The title is Ting, but the author asks a thing in google's AI answer socks and then they spend a couple paragraphs pontificating about that then they participate some other bullshit like.. But here we are, talking about it. le sigh.

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

#417

Post by tome »

bulder wrote: post #237
tome wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some downside of that to you? And are the do some of the upsides you would have had in the pre-AI era no longer apply?

The downside, as stated in the message, is implicitly supporting the LLM data ingestation pipeline by providing fresh content. It's not a direct harm in itself, but feels very tragedy of the commonsy

> The downside ... is implicitly supporting the LLM data ingestation pipeline by providing fresh content

I don't understand why that's a downside.

> It's not a direct harm in itself

I don't understand how it's a harm at all.

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

#418

Post by tome »

frabcus wrote: post #238
tome wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some downside of that to you? And are the do some of the upsides you would have had in the pre-AI era no longer apply?

Yes - previously there was some chance someone reading the ideas on the blog would contact the author to thank them, or ask them to collaborate. When laundered via LLMs whose pretraining destroys all credit, that can't happen.

OK, and there's still some chance, right? I don't understand why you say it can't happen any more.

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

#419

Post by dwedge »

Really well written article and interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about a governmental policy over retaining access to information though, the information is provides by us and we pay for the infrastructure, the idea that there must be some form of retention policy makes me feel uneasy and doesn't really fit with the analogy of governments maintaining roads.

I'm on both sides. I hate dead links but I'd hate a policy that made me responsible for them without any compensation in the first place. It would probably make me stop producing at all

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

#420

Post by tome »

mittensc wrote: post #235
tome wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some downside of that to you? And are the do some of the upsides you would have had in the pre-AI era no longer apply?

he's missing out on any attention that his shared thoughts would bring? and all benefits that might bring if he's good at what he does. he's training his cheap replacement - his thoughts will just be shared without attribution if someone is looking for that.

Is he? Why? People never read blog articles any more, and only consume content generated by AI?

> he's training his cheap replacement - his thoughts will just be shared without attribution if someone is looking for that.

So? That's not a harm.

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