3 ms·

Unfortunately the new victims in the system of LLMs and the way they distribute knowledge is the specialized content website. Now an LLM just knows all the con

by awongh 1y ago

Unfortunately the new victims in the system of LLMs and the way they distribute knowledge is the specialized content website. Now an LLM just knows all the content you painstakingly gathered on your site. (It could also be, and is likely that it was also collected from other hard to find sites across the internet). The original web killed off the value of a certain kind of knowledge (encyclopedias, etc.) and LLMs will do the same. There are plenty of places to place the blame, but this is a function of any LLM, and a funcamental way LLMs work, not just a problem created and profited from by Google- for example the open-weight models, where no-one is actually profiting directly.

jjani 1y ago
> There are plenty of places to place the blame, but this is a function of any LLM, and a funcamental way LLMs work, not just a problem created and profited from by Google- for example the open-weight models, where no-one is actually profiting directly. First time learning that scraping and training on data that they have often been explicitly disallowed to obtain for free or for that purpose by the rights holders is "fundamental to how LLMs work". If not, then there is no reason those who gathered the information wouldn't stand to profit by selling LLMs this data.
nothercastle 1y ago
We killed forums and now were killing specialty websites. Soon we will get right back to pre internet levels of knowledge. Ai will be able to find all the stuff that was easily available in encyclopedias and text books and none of the stuff that made 90s-2000 internet great.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  I wonder how long it will take AI agents to automatically make accounts and submit credit card info to scrape data that is paywalled I don't think there is any reason they couldn't do that
- ryandrake 1y ago
  The Internet had plenty of specialty knowledge before "Gathering that knowledge, SEOing it, and stuffing ads all over it" became a viable business model, and it will have plenty of specialty knowledge after this era is over.
  - nicbou 1y ago
    Specialty knowledge can also be a guy reviewing air purifiers with obsessive care. It can be someone writing detailed travel guides or in my case an essential resource for immigrants. There were a lot of good websites, and if you could not find them, blame Google for letting its search engine go to the dogs. Gathering that knowledge is work, and if anyone should capture that value, it's the people doing the work. Seeing bug tech slurp it all up, insert inself in the middle and capture all the value is heartbreaking. I hate that AI is destroying the economics of the independent web, and people cheer for it because they landed on Forbes one too many times. It's insulting to all the people who did their job right, and still get their work slurped up by an uncaring corporation with no way to stop them. We will get the web that we deserve.
- tayo42 1y ago
  That was already dying if not dead thanks to YouTube and short form video being the preferred way for people to make content and I guess consume
integralid 1y ago
>The original web killed off the value of a certain kind of knowledge (encyclopedias, etc.) and LLMs will do the same. I wonder how many people will decide to just stop sharing technical knowledge because of that, and how much we will lose because of it.
- rkomorn 1y ago
  Maybe (I can't emphasize enough that I say this with a high degree of skepticism) they'll come up with a way of doing cited/credited/paid work where the LLM will include who "taught" it something. Eg: instead of writing a blog post, you'll submit a knowledge article to an AI provider and that'll go into the AI's training set and it'll know "you" told it. And maybe (even more skeptical) pay you for it. Again: highest degree of skepticism, but at the same time, that's the only way I could see people continuing to write content that teaches anything.
  - nicbou 1y ago
    This will only happen as an absolute necessity, for example if the EU threatens massive fines or the US antitrust people grow some teeth. Even then, you'll get malicious compliance. The best case scenario would be a bit like Spotify: everyone getting fractions of a penny.
    - rkomorn 1y ago
      Agreed. I'm particularly pessimistic about how this will play out.
troyvit 1y ago
> There are plenty of places to place the blame, but this is a function of any LLM, and a funcamental way LLMs work, not just a problem created and profited from by Google- for example the open-weight models, where no-one is actually profiting directly. One problem with monopolies is their massive multiplicative effects on otherwise manageable problems.

by awongh 1y ago

jjani 1y ago

> There are plenty of places to place the blame, but this is a function of any LLM, and a funcamental way LLMs work, not just a problem created and profited from by Google- for example the open-weight models, where no-one is actually profiting directly. First time learning that scraping and training on data that they have often been explicitly disallowed to obtain for free or for that purpose by the rights holders is "fundamental to how LLMs work". If not, then there is no reason those who gathered the information wouldn't stand to profit by selling LLMs this data.

nothercastle 1y ago

We killed forums and now were killing specialty websites. Soon we will get right back to pre internet levels of knowledge. Ai will be able to find all the stuff that was easily available in encyclopedias and text books and none of the stuff that made 90s-2000 internet great.

bluefirebrand 1y ago
I wonder how long it will take AI agents to automatically make accounts and submit credit card info to scrape data that is paywalled I don't think there is any reason they couldn't do that
ryandrake 1y ago
The Internet had plenty of specialty knowledge before "Gathering that knowledge, SEOing it, and stuffing ads all over it" became a viable business model, and it will have plenty of specialty knowledge after this era is over.
- nicbou 1y ago
  Specialty knowledge can also be a guy reviewing air purifiers with obsessive care. It can be someone writing detailed travel guides or in my case an essential resource for immigrants. There were a lot of good websites, and if you could not find them, blame Google for letting its search engine go to the dogs. Gathering that knowledge is work, and if anyone should capture that value, it's the people doing the work. Seeing bug tech slurp it all up, insert inself in the middle and capture all the value is heartbreaking. I hate that AI is destroying the economics of the independent web, and people cheer for it because they landed on Forbes one too many times. It's insulting to all the people who did their job right, and still get their work slurped up by an uncaring corporation with no way to stop them. We will get the web that we deserve.
tayo42 1y ago
That was already dying if not dead thanks to YouTube and short form video being the preferred way for people to make content and I guess consume

integralid 1y ago

>The original web killed off the value of a certain kind of knowledge (encyclopedias, etc.) and LLMs will do the same. I wonder how many people will decide to just stop sharing technical knowledge because of that, and how much we will lose because of it.

rkomorn 1y ago
Maybe (I can't emphasize enough that I say this with a high degree of skepticism) they'll come up with a way of doing cited/credited/paid work where the LLM will include who "taught" it something. Eg: instead of writing a blog post, you'll submit a knowledge article to an AI provider and that'll go into the AI's training set and it'll know "you" told it. And maybe (even more skeptical) pay you for it. Again: highest degree of skepticism, but at the same time, that's the only way I could see people continuing to write content that teaches anything.
- nicbou 1y ago
  This will only happen as an absolute necessity, for example if the EU threatens massive fines or the US antitrust people grow some teeth. Even then, you'll get malicious compliance. The best case scenario would be a bit like Spotify: everyone getting fractions of a penny.
  - rkomorn 1y ago
    Agreed. I'm particularly pessimistic about how this will play out.

troyvit 1y ago

> There are plenty of places to place the blame, but this is a function of any LLM, and a funcamental way LLMs work, not just a problem created and profited from by Google- for example the open-weight models, where no-one is actually profiting directly. One problem with monopolies is their massive multiplicative effects on otherwise manageable problems.