I’ve seen a lot of doomsaying about the death of the internet. Last night, I was reading about how integrated AI answers in search results leads to a drastic drop in clicks to the actual sites from which AIs derive the information to answer those questions or make those suggestions. It’s been noted that AI is writing an increasing amount of the content on the internet (and even print media). This leads to a potential future where AI is slurping up garbage that AI itself generated.
We’re all doomed, SEO is only for AI, people will lose their jobs, etc.
Now, the thing is, I’ve recently felt compelled — for unrelated reasons — to blog more. Something about “building my personal brand” or whatever now that my actual job is a lot more public facing. And, honestly, there have always been a lot of ideas zipping around my brain and this gives me a place to put them.
The idea that’s been zipping around in relation to this specific problem is this:
If AI is consuming all of the factual or SEO-optimized content of the internet, I’m actually okay with that. Because what it leaves behind, what AI might ingest but maybe not know what to do with, is the human parts of the internet. Opinions, rants, thought pieces — the stuff that we used to do before we got all hyped about SERPs.
In other words, if AI is eating everything else, let’s fill the internet with human ideas. Obviously, this was an idea that informed Community + Code (shameless plug), but even as we were recording Binary Jazz during the rise of AI domination, a running joke was that we were creating content that would only ever be consumed by AI that wouldn’t know what to do with it (or the aliens of the future that find relics from 20th century Earth internet culture).
Maybe blogging is more than self-indulgence or an exercise in nostalgia but rather active resistance against an AI-generated coup for dominance of the internet. Remember webrings? Remember guestbooks? Those were ideas that facilitated communication and community between the rising population of netizens that evolved into things like forums and social networks.
If we want to save the internet from large language models, I think we need to go back to the foundational roots of the internet. The things that made the internet weird and interconnected. Apparently AI can change people’s minds on social media, but can it express heartfelt opinions without directly plagiarizing? It can generate music that sounds reasonably decent, but it can’t simulate the intensity or heart of live recorded music by humans.
I don’t think that AI gets much value out of this blog (as an example) — other than perhaps using it as a way to build a profile of who this jazzsequence person is. And that’s a good thing. Maybe SERP clicks are crashing because of AI-generated answers and maybe that hits at the very core of what SEO was built for.
Assuredly, it will affect the businesses that try to draw attention to themselves from search results. It means there has to be a shift, but I think (maybe I’m idealistic) that this shift must be a human one. Relationships are key (and it’s generally relationships that sell). I don’t think we can fabricate real relationships with artificial intelligence. Maybe that will come in time, but for now, let’s fill the internet with humanity if we want to thwart the AI revolution. Let’s make content for the sake of itself, not utility but rather just free expression.
One of the things that I remember from web 1.0 (or earlier?) that made the internet feel human was sharing what you were listening to recently. In that spirit, I’ve been listening (and adding) to this playlist of goth-y/dark cover songs that I created a while ago.
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