Last summer, I wrote DOES AI-ASSISTED SEARCH MEAN THAT NO ONE WILL EVER READ THE ONLINE CONTENT THAT I & OTHERS CREATE EVER AGAIN?
I was referring to the expectation that search engines like Google would start using AI to take information from websites and summarize it in response to questions people submit to them, instead of directing people to the sites themselves.
Today, The Washington Post published an article highlighting that this process has begun.
They headlined the article, Web publishers brace for carnage as Google adds AI answers.
Sigh.
Addendum:
Ever since ChatGPT came out, publishers have been worrying about what would happen to the open web if Google decided to feature generative AI summaries in core search results for its billions of users. We're about to find out!https://t.co/SyWCzm4Owl
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) May 14, 2024
Yes, it is a “deluge”. We are losing the heritage, culture, deep knowledge of professionals for access to pap, fast answers, logical driven outcomes devoid of the human element. Keep up the good fight. I’ve seen my own 1,000s of dedicated, well-written articles lose eyeballs – Google now drives everything to Reddit chit-chat. Oh, you can pay, that’s really the issue. The promise of the internet has been destroyed. And we now have bots, bots, bots, AI is one of them, people lose sight of that, it is a bot in a fancy suit and dress.