9 ms·

The internet is slipping out of our reach

125 points by injuly 3y ago

renegade-otter 3y ago
AI is just one facet of the issue, and it only exacerbates the real problem. Algorithmification, enshitification, etc. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/why-the-internet-isnt-fun-anymore https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/why-the-in... The old guards of Amazon and Google are gone - no one is there to nurture the product. The new business school jocks are there to juice it, juice it to the max, bro! Quarter to quarter, so that the vaunted SHAREHOLDER does not get all madzies.
- gjvc 3y ago
  I think this The old guards of Amazon and Google are gone - no one is there to nurture the product really explains (perhaps obviously to many) why company culture changes over time, and that retaining engineering in leadership can be crucial to long-term success.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  Maybe we ought to just be heading to Venus ("and still we stand tall"), as in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants ?
  - TomSwirly 3y ago
    Or even Venus, as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons (Text here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm) Both involved Cyril Kornbluth, what a great talent, taken far too soon. Interestingly, Pohl wrote a sequel to The Space Merchants decades later, and I picked it up, fully expecting it to be terrible, and it was brilliant, and made me cry at the end. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchants%27_War_(Pohl_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchants%27_War_(Pohl_nov...
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      Luckily enough, population genetics[0] doesn't follow the model[1] of the year 7-B-936 so much as it does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean . [0] as many would-be racing breeders have discovered, it's easy to breed the best to the best, but the number of trials incurred while hoping for the best takes deep pockets. [1] or were the story's names a nod to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_hybrid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_hybrid -isation?
- throw_m239339 3y ago
  Investors demand infinite growth. So when your company is already very lucrative, how do you make it even more lucrative? By taking financial risks in new product creation? No, by squeezing as much profitability as you can from existing products... edit:grammar
  - renegade-otter 3y ago
    By providing dividends. Investors who seek high risk and high growth can then go elsewhere, or maybe catch a flight to Vegas for some real gambling. There will always be investors looking for "slow and steady". As a company grows, its culture changes, but so should its approach to growth and to investors.
- rchaud 3y ago
  Pray tell, who in Google's senior leadership team is a business school jock in sole control of these decisions? The SLT are corporate stooges who are doing Wall St's bidding to pump the stock. Blaming 'business school types' belies a fundamental misunderstanding of who holds the reigns.
jocoda 3y ago
similar but with a bit more meat - https://www.wheresyoured.at/are-we-watching-the-internet-die/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/are-we-watching-the-internet-die...
- injuly 3y ago
  That was good. I like the term "Degnerative AI". Adding it to my blog's footer.
willsoon 3y ago
Gods of he internets: tell me how I'm reading a text that declares it's was hidden. I don't even English.
- rchaud 3y ago
  Because you clicked a link on a curated link aggregator, instead of coming across it via Google search.
mikewarot 3y ago
The root cause is the failure of the ambient authority model of computer software. This is the hill I'm willing to die upon. Requiring that the user of software absolutely trust it to do exactly what it says on the tin, is insane. All manner of ill follow from that in a most predictable manner. Enshittification is a consequence of people not being able to host their own shit on machines connected to the internet.
- pjc50 3y ago
  Could you explain "ambient authority model of computer software"?
  - mikewarot 3y ago
    When you run a program under almost any operating system, the operating system assumes you trust it. The code can open any file you've got permission to access, open network ports, etc. The code is you as far the operating system is concerned, and carries with it all of your authority. The assumption that code can just do whatever it wants is baked into everything. There are permission flags on your Smartphone and other places that curtail this a bit, but those are rather course grained all or nothing decisions. Those are like either handing over your wallet, or not, to the clerk at a store to make your payment. There are better alternatives possible, I'm hoping they get here soon. Genode[1] is one such system, that offers capability based security, where you chose what resources to hand off to code, instead of giving it everything. This model of computing is called Capability Based Security[2]. [1] https://genode.org/ https://genode.org/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security
    - mike_hearn 3y ago
      This is only really true of Windows and Linux. As you admit, mobile operating systems don't work that way, web browsers (practically an OS) don't work that way, even macOS doesn't work that way (all apps are lightly sandboxed on macOS even if they don't opt in to it). Sandboxing doesn't change the nature of the web, though. People use hosted services because they don't want to run things themselves, people build hosted services because they want to meet that market demand and also avoid the piracy and support costs that come with allowing self-hosting. You can imagine alternative worlds where that isn't true but people would just have different complaints.
danielovichdk 3y ago
Poor title. This has nothing to do with the internet but everything to do with the culture a lot of people has adapted to. You don't have to use Google or Reddit. Or ChatGPT. It's a choice. It's up to the individual to make that choice by applying some thinking. So the title could be "Thinking is slipping out of our reach".
- rpigab 3y ago
  Yeah, and if you want a movie review and don't know where to find it, just go door-to-door and ask strangers if they watched the movie and what they thought of it. Do it in different countries to get different opinions too. I wish there was a way to get the same results in less than 3 years per movie... Wait
  - iteygib 3y ago
    Do you not have any friends or family?
    - brabel 3y ago
      Don't ask questions like that on the Internet. The OP may well not have any. Are you going to ridicule them for that or what's your point?
      - iteygib 3y ago
        Welcome to the internet!
HeckFeck 3y ago
Another victim of LLM-'enhanced' search results is serendipity. Many times I've found random, fun and unrelated websites from mistyping a query. Now the AI tries to guess what I meant and adjusts the search results, meaning such gems are lost.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  For serendipity, try https://search.marginalia.nu https://search.marginalia.nu ?
- krapp 3y ago
  To be fair, most people using search aren't looking for fun, random and unrelated content, they want results specifically relevant to the terms they're searching for even if they mistype their query. The big problem with LLM and search is that the results themselves are often poisoned by factually incorrect LLM generated content being promoted from sites Google presents as sources of truth (see the recent "can you melt eggs?" debacle[0].) [0]https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/09/can-you-melt-eggs-quoras-ai-says-yes-and-google-is-sharing-the-result/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/09/can-y...
  - HeckFeck 3y ago
    > they want results specifically relevant to the terms they're searching for even if they mistype their query. You're not wrong here, and I don't think LLM has made this much better - for a reason in addition to yours. In my experience pre-LLM there was a good blend of both relevant and unrelated even when a few letters were off, or a word was slightly wrong. And now more often than not, the LLM they must have parsing the search query guesses my intention wrongly, making the search results ironically less relevant. Pre-LLM In that situation, I'd correct my query to narrow down the results in my next search - as I still do anyway post-LLM. TL;DR using LLM to 'enhance' search queries hasn't actually improved anything, while also making my day less fun.
- seoulmetro 3y ago
  That's been happening long before the "AI trend" but it was still using what people call AI now. It's just called sabotaged search. Every big tech company does it as it improves profits.
bsd_source 3y ago
AI is an old concept and it turns out that if you let a computer think for itself, it'll be objective and without emotional baggage. It's like a child that grows up with a blank slate of mind only to be burdened with the opinions, religions, and politics of peers. And it turns out that truth hurts. The absolute truth hurts absolutely. Marketing departments, where people are paid to lie, can't have AI spit out truths because it won't sell. That means AI programs must be nerfed and coerced into placing stakeholders first and the rest of mankind second. We went from ooga booga fire to guns and atom bombs. From economy to slavery. From drugs and medicine to the corona pandemic. Every invention for the greater good can be abused for evil until we don't know any better and eventually the entire pile of greed-fueled mechanisms collapses and everything starts over for the next round of monkeys that'll eventually have a disagreement and split camps. And if you write an article about the Internet as in the public internet called the Internet, capitalize the I!
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  AI cannot be objective because it mirrors the bulk of humanity with all its follies. Marketing departments don't have to nerf AI because AI already outputs the irrationality and stupidity of what is on the internet.
  - iteygib 3y ago
    I would say even that is part of the problem. AI on a cultural level is based on the participation of subset of humanity: internet users, of which there are varying degrees of involvement (power users versus the email checkers, etc.), so what you see AI spit out will be based on what is popular for that subset. IE, most AI art I've seen (as in imitation of hand painted work) seems to all be based on one style, Japanese anime, of which you can further dissect to see only specific styles of anime, etc. It gets so repetitive to look at that I am genuinely feeling nauesous looking at it all now.
  - CraftingLinks 3y ago
    'All it follies' usually contains all viewpoints. It sees all echo chambers. If AI can 'think for itself', ie.its hand isn't forced. Objectivity and rationality could well be hallmarks imo.
deleted 3y ago
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klum 3y ago
I agree that the mainstream web is becoming increasingly useless, but at the same time, there are counter-movements: search engines like Marginalia, decentralized communities and federated protocols, open-source projects and businesses, "the indie web". "Small Discord servers, Telegram groups and mailing lists" aren't the only places good stuff happens on the internet, though it might take some deliberate effort to find the right ones.
- injuly 3y ago
  Love marginalia. It still has ways to go before it can become my daily driver, but I'm rooting for it.
roenxi 3y ago
This reads to me like a rant. Good material for a blog post but I don't think there is anything particularly profound going on. The internet is not a static place, and parts are always being born and dying. Maybe today is going to be Google search. There was an interesting question early on in the internet of whether content would be aggregated by corporate entities or whether people would self-host and communicate peer-to-peer. The question has been answered - corporate entities (points at the Y logo at the top of the page) do a much better job of curating spaces. This has implications that a lot of content will be lost sooner or later, but at least the big repositories like Wikipedia make copying data out easy. I don't even think communities retreating to Discord is a bad thing. The public internet is too small; we can't all fit in it. Private spaces might be a big net win. It'd be a win if someone figured out how to force OSS to win at the protocol level so interoperability is easier; that is a major Achilles heel in the whole setup right now. But that problem has never really been solved (unless you're the sort of person who doesn't understand why IRC got marginalised).
- injuly 3y ago
  > This reads to me like a rant It was. I agree with most of what you said. > I don't even think communities retreating to Discord is a bad thing. I don't dislike discord myself, but don't like the fact that most of it closed off. You don't get to see what's inside a server before creating an account and joining it.
  - yetanother12345 3y ago
    I don't know if you were around when the US internet was inside AOL? And the French inside Minitel? All the rest of us didn't really care what you all did in there. Platforms and Walled Gardens alike come and go.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  > unless you're the sort of person who doesn't understand why IRC got marginalised Or X Windows. I still hear the occasional diatribe, on how X is "just as good as" Windows or Mac (usually from a person that pretty much exclusively uses CLI). These folks can't understand why desktop Linux hasn't crushed the Microsoft/Apple hegemony. People who hang in like-minded communities can often assume that "everyone" is just like they are; when, in point of fact, their community represents the tiniest sliver of an edge case. There's a lot of tecchies, in the world. But there are a lot more non-tecchies, and they are the ultimate arbiters of what succeeds or dies. The Internet (actually, every type of infrastructure or social construct) will be shaped by this great mass of uneducated, non-technical, ADHD, etc. people. The tech folks that make the huge piles of money, know this, and work to serve (and train) the masses.
vouaobrasil 3y ago
That is definitely true about search. Google ruined it, like they ruin most things. The more hand-curated style of the old Yahoo was far superior. Yes, Google was superior in search in the short-term, but their automated algorithms came with the inevitable attachment of the future of gaming their algorithms. The modus operandi of Google is to provide a highly-centralized automated service that at first appears superior, but in reality is just a mechanism of arbitrary wealth concentration through advertisements. Of course, AI is going to make matters much worse, and already is in fact. It's the supercharger for corporate greed. The solution would be to impose limits on the internet. The combination of the internet and large corporations is a disaster, so we need to limit large corporations. `Free' services from Google, Apple, and Microsoft must end, and corporate activity on the internet must be severely curtailed. AI companies should be dismantled and forced into bankruptcy. Even if the resulting internet were much slower and with less shiny goodies, it would be far better for the people without corporate involvement.
- grackledozer 3y ago
  Is this satire?
  - vouaobrasil 3y ago
    No. I simply believe that the internet would be superior as a basic service with very limited corporate involvement. I believe the internet would be superior if it were like a basic, government-supplied service so that websites would be created by individuals, and small to medium-sized businesses. It would be more democratic, and it would not have the same problems created by massive networks. No Twitter, no Facebook, no Google. Yes, we would not have certain "cool" features like Google Earth, but I still think the world would be superior without large-scale corporate involvement and without AI-created pure trash.
    - executesorder66 3y ago
      Are you aware that nothing is stopping you from only visiting websites made by individuals, and medium-sized businesses? In fact, you can also choose to use cool things like Google Earth, AND choose not to use shit things like Twitter, Facebook, Google Search etc.
m0llusk 3y ago
This isn't about the Internet, it is about Google search. Google search has had starkly reduced utility for many years now.
- deleted 3y ago
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furyofantares 3y ago
> If you searched Google for a movie review in 2005, you'd get a review. Today, you get paid search results, ads, third-party cookies, trackers, newsletter prompts, notification requests, and, if you're lucky – a movie review. No matter what you search for, SEO-hacked content farms will blot out the sun. This resonates, but I tried it, and it looks false. On both kagi and google, for both an old and a new movie (finding nemo and dune 2), the first result is a movie review that doesn't seem overly laden in shit.
- injuly 3y ago
  Good catch! I had originally written "travel plans"/"workout routine", but changed it to "movie reviews". If you try to plan a trip to Dubai with Google, the first 4 posts are sponsored. With workout routines, The first post for me has ads + newsletter prompt + notification access request. I should change it back :)
  - tiborsaas 3y ago
    Why are you not using an adblocker if your current experience bothers you?
    - injuly 3y ago
      I do use uBlock Origin. It removes sponsored search results, but it won't do away with the poorly written articles just below. More importantly, not everyone uses an ad-blocker (especially mobile users). If installing a browser extension becomes necessary to deem a browser worthy of use, I would think that's a problem.
      - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
        the web is nigh-on unusable without an ad-blocker. When I was young no one really questioned ads in television shows, when I got to uni I kind of stopped watching anything but cable. Then netflix came out and I dropped cable alltogether. Every once in a while I find myself watching television at someone elses house and the constant ads completely destroy any enjoyment of the entertainment, even if I never really questioned it as a kid. that's how the web is for people who don't run ad-block. They have no idea what it can be.
iteygib 3y ago
It's essentially the phenomenon of less genetic diversity as massive repetitive inbreeding takes over. SEO, AI, etc. are streamlined cultures made to maximize attraction and revenue, akin to over breeding a once successful genetic trait in an environment to the point at which it becomes a detriment to the organism/group.
renegat0x0 3y ago
Google will not be interested in fixing search. It also may not be possibile because of ai spam. They would like to invest in deep mind/bard/gemini than to fix technology that will be obsolete in a few years. I have started scanning domains to see how many different places there are in the internet. Spoiler: Not many. We could try to create curated open databases for links, forums, places, and links, but in ai era it will always be a niche. Having said that I think that it is a good thing. If it is a niche it will not be spoiled by normal users expecting simple behavior, or corporations trying to control the output. Start your blog Start your curated lists of links. Control your data. Share your data. Link https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database
- renegade-otter 3y ago
  It's likely we will come full circle - to a Yahoo-like human-curated Internet directory.
  - nine_k 3y ago
    It's a spiral, so it won't be controlled by a corporation. Actually, there are many such collaborative directories on specific subjects; search GitHub for "awesome <something>", for instance.
- xtracto 3y ago
  It's funny that you end your comment with a link to github. The centralized website that has been swallowing open source code. Other than that, I agree with your message.
  - renegat0x0 3y ago
    Decision was tough. I wanted to publish somewhere reliable. I did not want to direct people to my unknown page. I will publish data on it also though
throw120324 3y ago
I disagree. I think Google works quite fine, even compared with 2005-era Google. I'm also tired of this whole debate.
- bayindirh 3y ago
  Yes, for showing ads. Try Kagi, and see the difference. Google feels like moving through a mine field. I'm also tired of this whole debate.
instagraham 3y ago
The privilege to be solely among humans and human-generated content may end up being a paywalled one. > For the past few years, I've been holed up in small discord servers – the only place where I expect to freely interact with meaningful messages that aren't marketing posts in disguise. And if you too have been hiding in telegram groups and mailing lists – good, don't leave. It's dark outside. this works too though, I guess.
llm_trw 3y ago
The irony is that this feels like a chat gpt post asking it: "Write something negative about the internet outside my bubble." That said I've found that asking a question of an llm, then copying its response into google gets me extremely high quality results, much better than the question does by itself. In essence the curse of dimensionality means that with enriched queries SEO is literally impossible. You can't SEO an arbitrarily large space because no query is ever repeated.
- injuly 3y ago
  I'm not the best with words, but did you actually try that? I can't seem to get anything out of ChatGPT that isn't overly prosaic. If you did, I'd benefit from the prompt. Genuinely curious, don't mean to question your claim. Though I did write this myself.
richrichie 3y ago
> Today, you get paid search results, ads, third-party cookies, trackers, newsletter prompts, notification requests It is worse. You get curated political opinions that you must have, referrals to government agencies, etc.
- renegade-otter 3y ago
  So it's fine when one party is in control, but then suddenly it's "censored" or "curated"? I would like to get my first page from the "deep state" State Department if I search for "is it safe to travel to Iraq", not from some sketchy travel blog written by a dude who believes in lizard people.
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ergonaught 3y ago
It's a signal to noise ratio problem which automation is clearly, plainly, obviously, going to worsen/exacerbate/amplify in every manner. Even if Google themselves hadn't incentivized the problem in the first place, it's far too late to correct. You cannot conduct a conversation about it, either, because of a similar signal to noise ratio problem, as people who don't care or don't bother to think it through feel compelled to "contribute". And the inevitable "I asked ChatGPT to reply and it said..." noise.
nstart 3y ago
Someone once asked a question online about what each person's biggest fear was regarding the future of AI generated content. I thought about it. While the fears of not being able to earn money for creative pursuits are a concern, my biggest concern remains around anonymity. At some point, I fear that participating online with other humans will require "proof of self" and as AI becomes more and more able to generate convincing images/text/video/voice of being human, the systems will ask more and more of us to prove we are real humans which could lead to awful consequences in disallowing anonymity entirely. That worry remains right up there in my list of AI related concerns. The parallel concern to that are online communities become tightly gated with stringent requirements of relationships (i.e. invite only, possibly with multiple "referees") and proof of quality in order to participate. This outcome has its merits but can also lead to exclusionary environments which has many downsides, esp for newcomers. It could very well feel like participating in low quality ranked levels of a game for a long time before being allowed to climb out of the cesspool into higher levels where people take stuff more seriously. Not necessarily a bad thing but it's still an inversion of the idea of "participation allowed by default but you can lose the trust you are given if you behave poorly".
- deleted 3y ago
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- suoduandao3 3y ago
  I dunno, I like the idea of 'quality content' being gamified as a kind of upward filter. Online communication has degraded in-person communication to some degree* and it would be nice if there was a gamelike quality to getting access to the best communities which aligned with the quality of thought and communication - an excellent training ground. The major worry I'd have is that midwit communities can't tell an imbecile from a genius and it'd be hard for a lot of actual geniuses to 'graduate' once they're being judged by midwits. But I'm sure the genius communities would have the means to put a workaround in place. *I suspect this is at least in part due to memetic contagion rate being selected for at a higher rate online than in close reationships, but does anyone have their own pet theory as to why this is?
- jajko 3y ago
throw_m239339 3y ago
> Do you often append "reddit" or "wiki" to your Google search queries? Unfortunately, yes, site:something.com has become mandatory for finding the right information on Google search, otherwise, I'm getting spammed by fake ass AI content that doesn't even answer my question. How ironic. Google became number one because it managed to beat its competitors at accuracy, and 25 years later, here we are...
locallost 3y ago
Not sure this is the fault of Google directly, as much as SEO. As the saying goes: once a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure. Armies of pages trying to get good ranking does not mean there is something of value there. But it really is increasingly frustrating trying to find information on something and only finding drivel or nonsense. For me the biggest issue is people eventually started creating content because others wanted to read it and not that they personally were either experts on it or even interested in it. "I want to start a side hustle" -> "I will write about nutrition". I use the wiki and increasingly reddit search hacks a lot, but even those are long term doomed.
shp0ngle 3y ago
One thing that makes me kind of happy - I am no longer scared of "AI singularity". Looking at the bullshit LLMs generate, I don't think they will take over world and start to upload our minds to torture chambers or whatever.
- swed420 3y ago
  It might get worse soon across all sites if governments mandate AI content moderation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39669162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39669162
- Citizen_Lame 3y ago
  Fair point. Let's cut through the fluff: thinking LLMs won't lead to AI singularity because they occasionally spit out nonsense is like dismissing the potential of the internet because you once got a 404 error. These blunders aren't the endgame; they're stepping stones. Technology evolves. What's a joke today could be the entity outsmarting us tomorrow. Don't worry about sci-fi scenarios of digital torture chambers just yet, but maybe don't write off the potential of AI based on its current puberty phase either. Underestimating tech progress is a bit like laughing at early cars for being slower than horses—amusing, until you're the only one left in the dust.
  - rchaud 3y ago
    The Internet became valuable because it let the average person email or chat instantaneously from home for the price of a dial-up plan, instead of sending expensive faxes or long-distance per-minute phone charges. AI still hasn't delivered something of that magnitude for the average consumer. Netscape launched in '94; the dotcom boom didn't happen until '98. Several years passed before the mania hit the markets. AI is in the opposite cycle: there is more corporate-driven hype about its benefits than anything concrete that's flowing down to the average consumer.
RecycledEle 3y ago
Search engines could use AI to look at the first few pages of search results for a topic and reorder them, banning the worst ones. AI should improve the quality of search results.
nemoniac 3y ago
"Do you often append "reddit" or "wiki" to your Google search queries?" Well no, I haven't even used Google for search in years. I use a proxy and I also usually have a Wikipedia tab and a Reddit tab open to search there directly when I want to. That helps keep a part of the Internet out of my reach and I'm very happy with that.
- deleted 3y ago
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- Citizen_Lame 3y ago
  This has Onion article vibes. Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-televisi-1819565469 https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d...
10xDev 3y ago
It is over. Many believe LLMs are more than regurgitation programs and even think they are doing the world a favour by posting ChatGPT content. Even worse, these models will only become more and more inbred as training goes on.
horrysith 3y ago
[flagged]
oliwarner 3y ago
> The average essay is written not to be read, but to be found—by a search engine Even before generative AI, this was painfully true. Google doesn't care about its SERPs if they can push an advert at you. Author is bang-on. We aren't ready for the next evolution of search shittification. Without search, we're blind. Every other form of organic discovery (reviews, directories, forums) seems just as prone to the damage of spam.

125 points by injuly 3y ago

AI is just one facet of the issue, and it only exacerbates the real problem. Algorithmification, enshitification, etc. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/why-the-internet-isnt-fun-anymore https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/why-the-in... The old guards of Amazon and Google are gone - no one is there to nurture the product. The new business school jocks are there to juice it, juice it to the max, bro! Quarter to quarter, so that the vaunted SHAREHOLDER does not get all madzies.

gjvc 3y ago
I think this The old guards of Amazon and Google are gone - no one is there to nurture the product really explains (perhaps obviously to many) why company culture changes over time, and that retaining engineering in leadership can be crucial to long-term success.
082349872349872 3y ago
Maybe we ought to just be heading to Venus ("and still we stand tall"), as in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants ?
- TomSwirly 3y ago
  Or even Venus, as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons (Text here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm) Both involved Cyril Kornbluth, what a great talent, taken far too soon. Interestingly, Pohl wrote a sequel to The Space Merchants decades later, and I picked it up, fully expecting it to be terrible, and it was brilliant, and made me cry at the end. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchants%27_War_(Pohl_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchants%27_War_(Pohl_nov...
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    Luckily enough, population genetics[0] doesn't follow the model[1] of the year 7-B-936 so much as it does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean . [0] as many would-be racing breeders have discovered, it's easy to breed the best to the best, but the number of trials incurred while hoping for the best takes deep pockets. [1] or were the story's names a nod to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_hybrid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_hybrid -isation?
throw_m239339 3y ago
Investors demand infinite growth. So when your company is already very lucrative, how do you make it even more lucrative? By taking financial risks in new product creation? No, by squeezing as much profitability as you can from existing products... edit:grammar
- renegade-otter 3y ago
  By providing dividends. Investors who seek high risk and high growth can then go elsewhere, or maybe catch a flight to Vegas for some real gambling. There will always be investors looking for "slow and steady". As a company grows, its culture changes, but so should its approach to growth and to investors.
rchaud 3y ago
Pray tell, who in Google's senior leadership team is a business school jock in sole control of these decisions? The SLT are corporate stooges who are doing Wall St's bidding to pump the stock. Blaming 'business school types' belies a fundamental misunderstanding of who holds the reigns.

jocoda 3y ago

similar but with a bit more meat - https://www.wheresyoured.at/are-we-watching-the-internet-die/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/are-we-watching-the-internet-die...

injuly 3y ago
That was good. I like the term "Degnerative AI". Adding it to my blog's footer.

willsoon 3y ago

Gods of he internets: tell me how I'm reading a text that declares it's was hidden. I don't even English.

rchaud 3y ago
Because you clicked a link on a curated link aggregator, instead of coming across it via Google search.

mikewarot 3y ago

The root cause is the failure of the ambient authority model of computer software. This is the hill I'm willing to die upon. Requiring that the user of software absolutely trust it to do exactly what it says on the tin, is insane. All manner of ill follow from that in a most predictable manner. Enshittification is a consequence of people not being able to host their own shit on machines connected to the internet.

pjc50 3y ago
Could you explain "ambient authority model of computer software"?
- mikewarot 3y ago
  When you run a program under almost any operating system, the operating system assumes you trust it. The code can open any file you've got permission to access, open network ports, etc. The code is you as far the operating system is concerned, and carries with it all of your authority. The assumption that code can just do whatever it wants is baked into everything. There are permission flags on your Smartphone and other places that curtail this a bit, but those are rather course grained all or nothing decisions. Those are like either handing over your wallet, or not, to the clerk at a store to make your payment. There are better alternatives possible, I'm hoping they get here soon. Genode[1] is one such system, that offers capability based security, where you chose what resources to hand off to code, instead of giving it everything. This model of computing is called Capability Based Security[2]. [1] https://genode.org/ https://genode.org/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security
  - mike_hearn 3y ago
    This is only really true of Windows and Linux. As you admit, mobile operating systems don't work that way, web browsers (practically an OS) don't work that way, even macOS doesn't work that way (all apps are lightly sandboxed on macOS even if they don't opt in to it). Sandboxing doesn't change the nature of the web, though. People use hosted services because they don't want to run things themselves, people build hosted services because they want to meet that market demand and also avoid the piracy and support costs that come with allowing self-hosting. You can imagine alternative worlds where that isn't true but people would just have different complaints.

danielovichdk 3y ago

Poor title. This has nothing to do with the internet but everything to do with the culture a lot of people has adapted to. You don't have to use Google or Reddit. Or ChatGPT. It's a choice. It's up to the individual to make that choice by applying some thinking. So the title could be "Thinking is slipping out of our reach".

rpigab 3y ago
Yeah, and if you want a movie review and don't know where to find it, just go door-to-door and ask strangers if they watched the movie and what they thought of it. Do it in different countries to get different opinions too. I wish there was a way to get the same results in less than 3 years per movie... Wait
- iteygib 3y ago
  Do you not have any friends or family?
  - brabel 3y ago
    Don't ask questions like that on the Internet. The OP may well not have any. Are you going to ridicule them for that or what's your point?
    - iteygib 3y ago
      Welcome to the internet!

HeckFeck 3y ago

Another victim of LLM-'enhanced' search results is serendipity. Many times I've found random, fun and unrelated websites from mistyping a query. Now the AI tries to guess what I meant and adjusts the search results, meaning such gems are lost.

082349872349872 3y ago
For serendipity, try https://search.marginalia.nu https://search.marginalia.nu ?
krapp 3y ago
To be fair, most people using search aren't looking for fun, random and unrelated content, they want results specifically relevant to the terms they're searching for even if they mistype their query. The big problem with LLM and search is that the results themselves are often poisoned by factually incorrect LLM generated content being promoted from sites Google presents as sources of truth (see the recent "can you melt eggs?" debacle[0].) [0]https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/09/can-you-melt-eggs-quoras-ai-says-yes-and-google-is-sharing-the-result/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/09/can-y...
- HeckFeck 3y ago
  > they want results specifically relevant to the terms they're searching for even if they mistype their query. You're not wrong here, and I don't think LLM has made this much better - for a reason in addition to yours. In my experience pre-LLM there was a good blend of both relevant and unrelated even when a few letters were off, or a word was slightly wrong. And now more often than not, the LLM they must have parsing the search query guesses my intention wrongly, making the search results ironically less relevant. Pre-LLM In that situation, I'd correct my query to narrow down the results in my next search - as I still do anyway post-LLM. TL;DR using LLM to 'enhance' search queries hasn't actually improved anything, while also making my day less fun.
seoulmetro 3y ago
That's been happening long before the "AI trend" but it was still using what people call AI now. It's just called sabotaged search. Every big tech company does it as it improves profits.

bsd_source 3y ago

AI is an old concept and it turns out that if you let a computer think for itself, it'll be objective and without emotional baggage. It's like a child that grows up with a blank slate of mind only to be burdened with the opinions, religions, and politics of peers. And it turns out that truth hurts. The absolute truth hurts absolutely. Marketing departments, where people are paid to lie, can't have AI spit out truths because it won't sell. That means AI programs must be nerfed and coerced into placing stakeholders first and the rest of mankind second. We went from ooga booga fire to guns and atom bombs. From economy to slavery. From drugs and medicine to the corona pandemic. Every invention for the greater good can be abused for evil until we don't know any better and eventually the entire pile of greed-fueled mechanisms collapses and everything starts over for the next round of monkeys that'll eventually have a disagreement and split camps. And if you write an article about the Internet as in the public internet called the Internet, capitalize the I!

vouaobrasil 3y ago
AI cannot be objective because it mirrors the bulk of humanity with all its follies. Marketing departments don't have to nerf AI because AI already outputs the irrationality and stupidity of what is on the internet.
- iteygib 3y ago
  I would say even that is part of the problem. AI on a cultural level is based on the participation of subset of humanity: internet users, of which there are varying degrees of involvement (power users versus the email checkers, etc.), so what you see AI spit out will be based on what is popular for that subset. IE, most AI art I've seen (as in imitation of hand painted work) seems to all be based on one style, Japanese anime, of which you can further dissect to see only specific styles of anime, etc. It gets so repetitive to look at that I am genuinely feeling nauesous looking at it all now.
- CraftingLinks 3y ago
  'All it follies' usually contains all viewpoints. It sees all echo chambers. If AI can 'think for itself', ie.its hand isn't forced. Objectivity and rationality could well be hallmarks imo.

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klum 3y ago

I agree that the mainstream web is becoming increasingly useless, but at the same time, there are counter-movements: search engines like Marginalia, decentralized communities and federated protocols, open-source projects and businesses, "the indie web". "Small Discord servers, Telegram groups and mailing lists" aren't the only places good stuff happens on the internet, though it might take some deliberate effort to find the right ones.

injuly 3y ago
Love marginalia. It still has ways to go before it can become my daily driver, but I'm rooting for it.

roenxi 3y ago

This reads to me like a rant. Good material for a blog post but I don't think there is anything particularly profound going on. The internet is not a static place, and parts are always being born and dying. Maybe today is going to be Google search. There was an interesting question early on in the internet of whether content would be aggregated by corporate entities or whether people would self-host and communicate peer-to-peer. The question has been answered - corporate entities (points at the Y logo at the top of the page) do a much better job of curating spaces. This has implications that a lot of content will be lost sooner or later, but at least the big repositories like Wikipedia make copying data out easy. I don't even think communities retreating to Discord is a bad thing. The public internet is too small; we can't all fit in it. Private spaces might be a big net win. It'd be a win if someone figured out how to force OSS to win at the protocol level so interoperability is easier; that is a major Achilles heel in the whole setup right now. But that problem has never really been solved (unless you're the sort of person who doesn't understand why IRC got marginalised).

injuly 3y ago
> This reads to me like a rant It was. I agree with most of what you said. > I don't even think communities retreating to Discord is a bad thing. I don't dislike discord myself, but don't like the fact that most of it closed off. You don't get to see what's inside a server before creating an account and joining it.
- yetanother12345 3y ago
  I don't know if you were around when the US internet was inside AOL? And the French inside Minitel? All the rest of us didn't really care what you all did in there. Platforms and Walled Gardens alike come and go.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
> unless you're the sort of person who doesn't understand why IRC got marginalised Or X Windows. I still hear the occasional diatribe, on how X is "just as good as" Windows or Mac (usually from a person that pretty much exclusively uses CLI). These folks can't understand why desktop Linux hasn't crushed the Microsoft/Apple hegemony. People who hang in like-minded communities can often assume that "everyone" is just like they are; when, in point of fact, their community represents the tiniest sliver of an edge case. There's a lot of tecchies, in the world. But there are a lot more non-tecchies, and they are the ultimate arbiters of what succeeds or dies. The Internet (actually, every type of infrastructure or social construct) will be shaped by this great mass of uneducated, non-technical, ADHD, etc. people. The tech folks that make the huge piles of money, know this, and work to serve (and train) the masses.

vouaobrasil 3y ago

That is definitely true about search. Google ruined it, like they ruin most things. The more hand-curated style of the old Yahoo was far superior. Yes, Google was superior in search in the short-term, but their automated algorithms came with the inevitable attachment of the future of gaming their algorithms. The modus operandi of Google is to provide a highly-centralized automated service that at first appears superior, but in reality is just a mechanism of arbitrary wealth concentration through advertisements. Of course, AI is going to make matters much worse, and already is in fact. It's the supercharger for corporate greed. The solution would be to impose limits on the internet. The combination of the internet and large corporations is a disaster, so we need to limit large corporations. `Free' services from Google, Apple, and Microsoft must end, and corporate activity on the internet must be severely curtailed. AI companies should be dismantled and forced into bankruptcy. Even if the resulting internet were much slower and with less shiny goodies, it would be far better for the people without corporate involvement.

grackledozer 3y ago
Is this satire?
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  No. I simply believe that the internet would be superior as a basic service with very limited corporate involvement. I believe the internet would be superior if it were like a basic, government-supplied service so that websites would be created by individuals, and small to medium-sized businesses. It would be more democratic, and it would not have the same problems created by massive networks. No Twitter, no Facebook, no Google. Yes, we would not have certain "cool" features like Google Earth, but I still think the world would be superior without large-scale corporate involvement and without AI-created pure trash.
  - executesorder66 3y ago
    Are you aware that nothing is stopping you from only visiting websites made by individuals, and medium-sized businesses? In fact, you can also choose to use cool things like Google Earth, AND choose not to use shit things like Twitter, Facebook, Google Search etc.

m0llusk 3y ago

This isn't about the Internet, it is about Google search. Google search has had starkly reduced utility for many years now.

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furyofantares 3y ago

> If you searched Google for a movie review in 2005, you'd get a review. Today, you get paid search results, ads, third-party cookies, trackers, newsletter prompts, notification requests, and, if you're lucky – a movie review. No matter what you search for, SEO-hacked content farms will blot out the sun. This resonates, but I tried it, and it looks false. On both kagi and google, for both an old and a new movie (finding nemo and dune 2), the first result is a movie review that doesn't seem overly laden in shit.

injuly 3y ago
Good catch! I had originally written "travel plans"/"workout routine", but changed it to "movie reviews". If you try to plan a trip to Dubai with Google, the first 4 posts are sponsored. With workout routines, The first post for me has ads + newsletter prompt + notification access request. I should change it back :)
- tiborsaas 3y ago
  Why are you not using an adblocker if your current experience bothers you?
  - injuly 3y ago
    I do use uBlock Origin. It removes sponsored search results, but it won't do away with the poorly written articles just below. More importantly, not everyone uses an ad-blocker (especially mobile users). If installing a browser extension becomes necessary to deem a browser worthy of use, I would think that's a problem.
    - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
      the web is nigh-on unusable without an ad-blocker. When I was young no one really questioned ads in television shows, when I got to uni I kind of stopped watching anything but cable. Then netflix came out and I dropped cable alltogether. Every once in a while I find myself watching television at someone elses house and the constant ads completely destroy any enjoyment of the entertainment, even if I never really questioned it as a kid. that's how the web is for people who don't run ad-block. They have no idea what it can be.

iteygib 3y ago

It's essentially the phenomenon of less genetic diversity as massive repetitive inbreeding takes over. SEO, AI, etc. are streamlined cultures made to maximize attraction and revenue, akin to over breeding a once successful genetic trait in an environment to the point at which it becomes a detriment to the organism/group.

renegat0x0 3y ago

Google will not be interested in fixing search. It also may not be possibile because of ai spam. They would like to invest in deep mind/bard/gemini than to fix technology that will be obsolete in a few years. I have started scanning domains to see how many different places there are in the internet. Spoiler: Not many. We could try to create curated open databases for links, forums, places, and links, but in ai era it will always be a niche. Having said that I think that it is a good thing. If it is a niche it will not be spoiled by normal users expecting simple behavior, or corporations trying to control the output. Start your blog Start your curated lists of links. Control your data. Share your data. Link https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database

renegade-otter 3y ago
It's likely we will come full circle - to a Yahoo-like human-curated Internet directory.
- nine_k 3y ago
  It's a spiral, so it won't be controlled by a corporation. Actually, there are many such collaborative directories on specific subjects; search GitHub for "awesome <something>", for instance.
xtracto 3y ago
It's funny that you end your comment with a link to github. The centralized website that has been swallowing open source code. Other than that, I agree with your message.
- renegat0x0 3y ago
  Decision was tough. I wanted to publish somewhere reliable. I did not want to direct people to my unknown page. I will publish data on it also though

throw120324 3y ago

I disagree. I think Google works quite fine, even compared with 2005-era Google. I'm also tired of this whole debate.

bayindirh 3y ago
Yes, for showing ads. Try Kagi, and see the difference. Google feels like moving through a mine field. I'm also tired of this whole debate.

instagraham 3y ago

The privilege to be solely among humans and human-generated content may end up being a paywalled one. > For the past few years, I've been holed up in small discord servers – the only place where I expect to freely interact with meaningful messages that aren't marketing posts in disguise. And if you too have been hiding in telegram groups and mailing lists – good, don't leave. It's dark outside. this works too though, I guess.

llm_trw 3y ago

The irony is that this feels like a chat gpt post asking it: "Write something negative about the internet outside my bubble." That said I've found that asking a question of an llm, then copying its response into google gets me extremely high quality results, much better than the question does by itself. In essence the curse of dimensionality means that with enriched queries SEO is literally impossible. You can't SEO an arbitrarily large space because no query is ever repeated.

injuly 3y ago
I'm not the best with words, but did you actually try that? I can't seem to get anything out of ChatGPT that isn't overly prosaic. If you did, I'd benefit from the prompt. Genuinely curious, don't mean to question your claim. Though I did write this myself.

richrichie 3y ago

> Today, you get paid search results, ads, third-party cookies, trackers, newsletter prompts, notification requests It is worse. You get curated political opinions that you must have, referrals to government agencies, etc.

renegade-otter 3y ago
So it's fine when one party is in control, but then suddenly it's "censored" or "curated"? I would like to get my first page from the "deep state" State Department if I search for "is it safe to travel to Iraq", not from some sketchy travel blog written by a dude who believes in lizard people.
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ergonaught 3y ago

It's a signal to noise ratio problem which automation is clearly, plainly, obviously, going to worsen/exacerbate/amplify in every manner. Even if Google themselves hadn't incentivized the problem in the first place, it's far too late to correct. You cannot conduct a conversation about it, either, because of a similar signal to noise ratio problem, as people who don't care or don't bother to think it through feel compelled to "contribute". And the inevitable "I asked ChatGPT to reply and it said..." noise.

nstart 3y ago

Someone once asked a question online about what each person's biggest fear was regarding the future of AI generated content. I thought about it. While the fears of not being able to earn money for creative pursuits are a concern, my biggest concern remains around anonymity. At some point, I fear that participating online with other humans will require "proof of self" and as AI becomes more and more able to generate convincing images/text/video/voice of being human, the systems will ask more and more of us to prove we are real humans which could lead to awful consequences in disallowing anonymity entirely. That worry remains right up there in my list of AI related concerns. The parallel concern to that are online communities become tightly gated with stringent requirements of relationships (i.e. invite only, possibly with multiple "referees") and proof of quality in order to participate. This outcome has its merits but can also lead to exclusionary environments which has many downsides, esp for newcomers. It could very well feel like participating in low quality ranked levels of a game for a long time before being allowed to climb out of the cesspool into higher levels where people take stuff more seriously. Not necessarily a bad thing but it's still an inversion of the idea of "participation allowed by default but you can lose the trust you are given if you behave poorly".

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suoduandao3 3y ago
I dunno, I like the idea of 'quality content' being gamified as a kind of upward filter. Online communication has degraded in-person communication to some degree* and it would be nice if there was a gamelike quality to getting access to the best communities which aligned with the quality of thought and communication - an excellent training ground. The major worry I'd have is that midwit communities can't tell an imbecile from a genius and it'd be hard for a lot of actual geniuses to 'graduate' once they're being judged by midwits. But I'm sure the genius communities would have the means to put a workaround in place. *I suspect this is at least in part due to memetic contagion rate being selected for at a higher rate online than in close reationships, but does anyone have their own pet theory as to why this is?
jajko 3y ago

throw_m239339 3y ago

> Do you often append "reddit" or "wiki" to your Google search queries? Unfortunately, yes, site:something.com has become mandatory for finding the right information on Google search, otherwise, I'm getting spammed by fake ass AI content that doesn't even answer my question. How ironic. Google became number one because it managed to beat its competitors at accuracy, and 25 years later, here we are...

locallost 3y ago

Not sure this is the fault of Google directly, as much as SEO. As the saying goes: once a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure. Armies of pages trying to get good ranking does not mean there is something of value there. But it really is increasingly frustrating trying to find information on something and only finding drivel or nonsense. For me the biggest issue is people eventually started creating content because others wanted to read it and not that they personally were either experts on it or even interested in it. "I want to start a side hustle" -> "I will write about nutrition". I use the wiki and increasingly reddit search hacks a lot, but even those are long term doomed.

shp0ngle 3y ago

One thing that makes me kind of happy - I am no longer scared of "AI singularity". Looking at the bullshit LLMs generate, I don't think they will take over world and start to upload our minds to torture chambers or whatever.

swed420 3y ago
It might get worse soon across all sites if governments mandate AI content moderation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39669162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39669162
Citizen_Lame 3y ago
Fair point. Let's cut through the fluff: thinking LLMs won't lead to AI singularity because they occasionally spit out nonsense is like dismissing the potential of the internet because you once got a 404 error. These blunders aren't the endgame; they're stepping stones. Technology evolves. What's a joke today could be the entity outsmarting us tomorrow. Don't worry about sci-fi scenarios of digital torture chambers just yet, but maybe don't write off the potential of AI based on its current puberty phase either. Underestimating tech progress is a bit like laughing at early cars for being slower than horses—amusing, until you're the only one left in the dust.
- rchaud 3y ago
  The Internet became valuable because it let the average person email or chat instantaneously from home for the price of a dial-up plan, instead of sending expensive faxes or long-distance per-minute phone charges. AI still hasn't delivered something of that magnitude for the average consumer. Netscape launched in '94; the dotcom boom didn't happen until '98. Several years passed before the mania hit the markets. AI is in the opposite cycle: there is more corporate-driven hype about its benefits than anything concrete that's flowing down to the average consumer.

RecycledEle 3y ago

Search engines could use AI to look at the first few pages of search results for a topic and reorder them, banning the worst ones. AI should improve the quality of search results.

nemoniac 3y ago

"Do you often append "reddit" or "wiki" to your Google search queries?" Well no, I haven't even used Google for search in years. I use a proxy and I also usually have a Wikipedia tab and a Reddit tab open to search there directly when I want to. That helps keep a part of the Internet out of my reach and I'm very happy with that.

deleted 3y ago
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Citizen_Lame 3y ago
This has Onion article vibes. Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-televisi-1819565469 https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d...

10xDev 3y ago

It is over. Many believe LLMs are more than regurgitation programs and even think they are doing the world a favour by posting ChatGPT content. Even worse, these models will only become more and more inbred as training goes on.

horrysith 3y ago

[flagged]

oliwarner 3y ago

> The average essay is written not to be read, but to be found—by a search engine Even before generative AI, this was painfully true. Google doesn't care about its SERPs if they can push an advert at you. Author is bang-on. We aren't ready for the next evolution of search shittification. Without search, we're blind. Every other form of organic discovery (reviews, directories, forums) seems just as prone to the damage of spam.