this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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The moment word was that Reddit (and now Stackoverflow) were tightening APIs to then sell our conversations to AI was when the game was given away. And I'm sure there were moments or clues before that.
This was when the "you're the product if its free" arrangement metastasised into "you're a data farming serf for a feudal digital overlord whether you pay or not".
Google search transitioning from Good search engine for the internet -> Bad search engine serving SEO crap and ads -> Just use our AI and forget about the internet is more of the same. That their search engine is dominated by SEO and Ads is part of it ... the internet, IE other people's content isn't valuable any more, not with any sovereignty or dignity, least of all the kind envisioned in the ideals of the internet.
The goal now is to be the new internet, where you can bet your ass that there will not be any Tim Berners-Lee open sourcing this. Instead, the internet that we all made is now a feudal landscape on which we all technically "live" and in which we all technically produce content, but which is now all owned, governed and consumed by big tech for their own profits.
I recall back around the start of YouTube, which IIRC was the first hype moment for the internet after the dotcom crash, there was talk about what structures would emerge on the internet ... whether new structures would be created or whether older economic structures would impose themselves and colonise the space. I wasn't thinking too hard at the time, but it seemed intuitive to that older structures would at least try very hard to impose themselves.
But I never thought anything like this would happen. That the cloud, search/google, mega platforms and AI would swallow the whole thing up.
Well said! I’m still wondering what happens when the enviable ouroboros of AI content referencing AI content referencing AI content makes the whole internet a self perpetuating mess of unreadable content and makes anything of value these companies once gained basically useless.
Would that eventually result in fresh, actual human created content only coming from social media? I guess clauses about using your likeness will be popping up in TikTok at some point (if they aren’t already)
It should end up self regulating once AI is using AI material. That's the downfall of the companies not bothering to put very clear identification of AI produced material. It'll spiral into a hilarious mess.
I’m legit looking forward to when Google returns completely garbled and unreadable search results, because someone is running an automated Ads campaign that sources another automated campaign and so on, with the only reason it rises to the top is that they put the highest bid amount.
I doubt Google will do shit about it, but at least the memes will be good!