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So you still believe the open internet has any chance of surviving what is coming? I admire your optimism. Reliable information and communication will soon be

So you still believe the open internet has any chance of surviving what is coming? I admire your optimism. Reliable information and communication will soon be opt-in only. The "open internet" will become an eclectic collection of random experiences, where any real human output will be a pleasant, rare surprise, that stirs the pot for a short blip before it is assimilated and buried under the flood.

flohofwoe 3y ago
The internet will be fine, social media platforms will be flooded and killed by AI trash, but I can't see anything bad with that outcome. An actually 'open internet' for exchanging ideas with random strangers was a nice utopia from the early 90's that had been killed long ago (or arguably never existed).
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  E-mail has *not* been killed long ago (aside some issues trying to run your own server and not getting blocked by gmail/hotmail). It is under threat now, due to the increased sophistication of spam.
  - flohofwoe 3y ago
    Email might already be 'culturally dead' though. I guess my nephew might have an email address for the occasional password recovery, but the idea of actually communicating over email with other humans might be completely alien to him ;) Similar in my current job btw.
    - BlueTemplar 3y ago
      Ok, I get how one might use a variety of other tools for informal communication, I don't really use e-mail for that any more either, but I'm curious, what else can you possibly use for work ? With the requirement that it must be easy to back up and transfer (for yourself as well as the organization), so any platforms are immediately out of question.
      - flohofwoe 3y ago
        I'm not saying that the alternatives are better than email (e.g. at my job, Slack has replaced email for communication, and Gitlab/JIRA/Confluence/GoogleDocs is used for everything that needs to persist). The focus has shifted away from email for communication (for better or worse).
        mcculley 3y ago
        A point that I don’t think is being appreciated here is that email is still fundamental to communication between organizations, even if they are using something less formal internally. One’s nephew might not interact in a professional capacity with other organizations, but many do.
        lupire 3y ago
        B2C uses texting. Even if B uses email, C doesn't read it. And that is becoming just links to a webapp. B2B probably still uses email, but that's terrible because of the phishing threat. Professional communication should use webapps plus notification pings which can be app notifications, emails, or SMS. People to people at different organizations again fall back to texting as an informal channel.
        mcculley 3y ago
        The overwhelming majority of B2B communication is email. I have sent 23 emails already today to 19 people in 16 organizations.
        BlueTemplar 3y ago
        Last week a B lost me as their C because they didn't provide an e-mail address and their chat was too dumb to understand a simple question.
        mlrtime 3y ago
        We use Slack for all of our vendor communications, at least the ones that matter. Even our clients use slack to connect, it is many times better then emails.
    - lynx23 3y ago
      But yourr nephew likely also uses TikTok, right? Not everthing the young do is a trend others should follow.
      - Capricorn2481 3y ago
        That's not really the argument, is it? The argument is most young people are using TikTok and will never use email for social things.
        pixl97 3y ago
        I mean, is another argument not "Soon the tok will be filled with it's own AI generated shit?"
      - mistermann 3y ago
        You think usage of TikTok is necessarily a trend that others should not follow? Do you say this as a sophisticated, informed user of the platform?
- mistermann 3y ago
  > The internet will be fine, social media platforms will be flooded and killed by AI trash In a battle between AI and teenage human ingenuity, I'll bet my money on the teenagers. I'd even go so far as to say they may be our only hope!
johnnyanmac 3y ago
Some parts yes, some parts no. communication as we know it will effectively cease to exist, as we have to either require strong enough verification to kill off anonymity, or somehow provide very strong, very adaptive spam filters. Or manual moderation in terms of some anti-bot vetting. Depends on demand for such "no bot" content. Search may be reduced to nigh uselessness, but the saavy will still be able to share quality information as needed. AI may even assist in that with people who have the domain knowledge to properly correct the prompts and rigorously proofread. How we find that quality information may, once again, be through closed off channels.
TaylorAlexander 3y ago
> So you still believe the open internet has any chance of surviving what is coming? I’m not really saying that, and haven’t put a lot of thought in to my views there. But when people say the biggest problem is the controls on the AI, I feel compelled to point out that the destruction of the open internet is happening despite these controls, and is a major problem unto itself.

flohofwoe 3y ago

The internet will be fine, social media platforms will be flooded and killed by AI trash, but I can't see anything bad with that outcome. An actually 'open internet' for exchanging ideas with random strangers was a nice utopia from the early 90's that had been killed long ago (or arguably never existed).

BlueTemplar 3y ago
E-mail has *not* been killed long ago (aside some issues trying to run your own server and not getting blocked by gmail/hotmail). It is under threat now, due to the increased sophistication of spam.
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  Email might already be 'culturally dead' though. I guess my nephew might have an email address for the occasional password recovery, but the idea of actually communicating over email with other humans might be completely alien to him ;) Similar in my current job btw.
  - BlueTemplar 3y ago
    Ok, I get how one might use a variety of other tools for informal communication, I don't really use e-mail for that any more either, but I'm curious, what else can you possibly use for work ? With the requirement that it must be easy to back up and transfer (for yourself as well as the organization), so any platforms are immediately out of question.
    - flohofwoe 3y ago
      I'm not saying that the alternatives are better than email (e.g. at my job, Slack has replaced email for communication, and Gitlab/JIRA/Confluence/GoogleDocs is used for everything that needs to persist). The focus has shifted away from email for communication (for better or worse).
      - mcculley 3y ago
        A point that I don’t think is being appreciated here is that email is still fundamental to communication between organizations, even if they are using something less formal internally. One’s nephew might not interact in a professional capacity with other organizations, but many do.
        lupire 3y ago
        B2C uses texting. Even if B uses email, C doesn't read it. And that is becoming just links to a webapp. B2B probably still uses email, but that's terrible because of the phishing threat. Professional communication should use webapps plus notification pings which can be app notifications, emails, or SMS. People to people at different organizations again fall back to texting as an informal channel.
        mcculley 3y ago
        The overwhelming majority of B2B communication is email. I have sent 23 emails already today to 19 people in 16 organizations.
        BlueTemplar 3y ago
        Last week a B lost me as their C because they didn't provide an e-mail address and their chat was too dumb to understand a simple question.
        mlrtime 3y ago
        We use Slack for all of our vendor communications, at least the ones that matter. Even our clients use slack to connect, it is many times better then emails.
  - lynx23 3y ago
    But yourr nephew likely also uses TikTok, right? Not everthing the young do is a trend others should follow.
    - Capricorn2481 3y ago
      That's not really the argument, is it? The argument is most young people are using TikTok and will never use email for social things.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        I mean, is another argument not "Soon the tok will be filled with it's own AI generated shit?"
    - mistermann 3y ago
      You think usage of TikTok is necessarily a trend that others should not follow? Do you say this as a sophisticated, informed user of the platform?
mistermann 3y ago
> The internet will be fine, social media platforms will be flooded and killed by AI trash In a battle between AI and teenage human ingenuity, I'll bet my money on the teenagers. I'd even go so far as to say they may be our only hope!

johnnyanmac 3y ago

Some parts yes, some parts no. communication as we know it will effectively cease to exist, as we have to either require strong enough verification to kill off anonymity, or somehow provide very strong, very adaptive spam filters. Or manual moderation in terms of some anti-bot vetting. Depends on demand for such "no bot" content. Search may be reduced to nigh uselessness, but the saavy will still be able to share quality information as needed. AI may even assist in that with people who have the domain knowledge to properly correct the prompts and rigorously proofread. How we find that quality information may, once again, be through closed off channels.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago

> So you still believe the open internet has any chance of surviving what is coming? I’m not really saying that, and haven’t put a lot of thought in to my views there. But when people say the biggest problem is the controls on the AI, I feel compelled to point out that the destruction of the open internet is happening despite these controls, and is a major problem unto itself.