4 ms·

It is interesting to think about where this will be headed in the future with LLMs. Will people just ask the AI in their phone for their immediate answer and th

It is interesting to think about where this will be headed in the future with LLMs. Will people just ask the AI in their phone for their immediate answer and the click baity articles lose a bunch of traffic as a result? I think that is kinda inevitable. What will that mean for bona fide quality sites? I don't know but part of me hopes that those detailed sites will flourish to offer more details than can be offered in a single LLM response. Wishful thinking perhaps. They'll be a huge backlash of course from the click-bait sites - just like with news sites protesting about losing traffic.

mnky9800n 3y ago
Don't worry. There will be click baity LLMs soon.
sshine 3y ago
> What will that mean for bona fide quality sites? I probably know what you mean by quality, because we’re in the same demography: sites that offer free, unobstructed reading material and software on any subject, technical or prose. Sites maintained mainly by individuals, universities, interest groups, source forges. There will always be a market for those sites, but they’re a little harder to find via Google lately. There was a time before Google was great, and it was an exciting time, too. What Google will continue to do great is provide a platform for quickly finding things you can pay money for. The only time I search Google is when I prefix the query with “buy”. I can be sure that the companies most interested in selling me this have put in ads, and price comparison and review sites have gamed the SEO.
dageshi 3y ago
Yes, I think the clickbait sites are done long term, people will just ask the AI on their phone. The people who were capable of writing those large detailed posts on subjects have most likely already moved to youtube or moved on. The data that's actually useful to the LLM's will exist in places like Discord, reddit, twitter. It's pretty obvious that twitter and reddit are going to sell their data to the LLM companies for a lot of money. Which leaves Discord, I would be very suspicious of anyone trying to buy Discord...
- panta 3y ago
  Advertisers will simply begin to pay more money to inject their content on those platforms, to have it end up inside LLM models. It could be even worse, because it will be less obvious that the content we'll be consuming through LLMs is polarized/paid for. There will be less transparency.
  - mattlondon 3y ago
    Yeah, although I suspect there will be "hook points" for AI-targeted ads while you enjoy the cool refreshing Coca-Cola taste as 6ou read your LLM responses.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      Or you train to be embedded in the training data. Make it say brand names instead of generic ingredients in recipes "2 spoons of Star Olive Oil from Walmart" etc. This will generate "organic" advertisement.
  - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
    Yes, I think this is where we're going. The entire Internet - what's left of it - will become one giant ad stream, with a few non-ad trimmings around the edges. It'll be as if Gutenberg filled his books with ads for taverns and merchants and added a bit of a written content somewhere in the middle. Ultimate hustle culture - submit, grift, or starve.
  - meroes 3y ago
    It’s like in Google Maps it loves to let me know there is Sponsored Business at the corner I’m passing. AI in smartphones will be gross.
- Roark66 3y ago
  I wonder, does reddit have all their servers in the US? Seems like such a large site would have some POPs in the EU. If so, they should fall under the GDPR which let's users ask for a copy of all their data (a-la Google takeout)
RandomLensman 3y ago
Quality typically costs money because its valuable, short of providing it as a public service, most people - like today - will not be able to afford it (who has a Bloomberg terminal at home, for example?).
willvarfar 3y ago
The LLMs are encoding the 'knowledge' they learn from scraping the clickbaity ad-ridden sites. And, in the near future, the LLMs will start encoding the 'knowledge' they learn from scraping clickbaity ad-ridden sites _that were written by LLMs_? Soon, shady SEO firms will be offering a service to get your product placed as the answer to normal questions people ask ChatGPT etc.

mnky9800n 3y ago

Don't worry. There will be click baity LLMs soon.

sshine 3y ago

> What will that mean for bona fide quality sites? I probably know what you mean by quality, because we’re in the same demography: sites that offer free, unobstructed reading material and software on any subject, technical or prose. Sites maintained mainly by individuals, universities, interest groups, source forges. There will always be a market for those sites, but they’re a little harder to find via Google lately. There was a time before Google was great, and it was an exciting time, too. What Google will continue to do great is provide a platform for quickly finding things you can pay money for. The only time I search Google is when I prefix the query with “buy”. I can be sure that the companies most interested in selling me this have put in ads, and price comparison and review sites have gamed the SEO.

dageshi 3y ago

Yes, I think the clickbait sites are done long term, people will just ask the AI on their phone. The people who were capable of writing those large detailed posts on subjects have most likely already moved to youtube or moved on. The data that's actually useful to the LLM's will exist in places like Discord, reddit, twitter. It's pretty obvious that twitter and reddit are going to sell their data to the LLM companies for a lot of money. Which leaves Discord, I would be very suspicious of anyone trying to buy Discord...

panta 3y ago
Advertisers will simply begin to pay more money to inject their content on those platforms, to have it end up inside LLM models. It could be even worse, because it will be less obvious that the content we'll be consuming through LLMs is polarized/paid for. There will be less transparency.
- mattlondon 3y ago
  Yeah, although I suspect there will be "hook points" for AI-targeted ads while you enjoy the cool refreshing Coca-Cola taste as 6ou read your LLM responses.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    Or you train to be embedded in the training data. Make it say brand names instead of generic ingredients in recipes "2 spoons of Star Olive Oil from Walmart" etc. This will generate "organic" advertisement.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Yes, I think this is where we're going. The entire Internet - what's left of it - will become one giant ad stream, with a few non-ad trimmings around the edges. It'll be as if Gutenberg filled his books with ads for taverns and merchants and added a bit of a written content somewhere in the middle. Ultimate hustle culture - submit, grift, or starve.
- meroes 3y ago
  It’s like in Google Maps it loves to let me know there is Sponsored Business at the corner I’m passing. AI in smartphones will be gross.
Roark66 3y ago
I wonder, does reddit have all their servers in the US? Seems like such a large site would have some POPs in the EU. If so, they should fall under the GDPR which let's users ask for a copy of all their data (a-la Google takeout)

RandomLensman 3y ago

Quality typically costs money because its valuable, short of providing it as a public service, most people - like today - will not be able to afford it (who has a Bloomberg terminal at home, for example?).

willvarfar 3y ago

The LLMs are encoding the 'knowledge' they learn from scraping the clickbaity ad-ridden sites. And, in the near future, the LLMs will start encoding the 'knowledge' they learn from scraping clickbaity ad-ridden sites _that were written by LLMs_? Soon, shady SEO firms will be offering a service to get your product placed as the answer to normal questions people ask ChatGPT etc.