flipthepyramid
Google announced its new plans for AI this week at their annual I/O developer conference, and to say that not everyone in the Tech Industry was thrilled by their plans to integrate Generative AI into their search engine, would be an understatement.
Emily Dreibelbis, writing for PC Magazine, published one of the more apocalyptic articles warning that Google could basically destroy most websites on the Internet.
Emily Dreibelbis, writing for PC Magazine, published one of the more apocalyptic articles warning that Google could basically destroy most websites on the Internet.
Why Google’s New ChatGPT-Style Search Could Kill the Websites That Feed It
Google just previewed its chatbot-style vision for the future of web search results. But if it mines publications’ hard work without compensating them, many may not survive this shift.
The typical PCMag product reviewer’s home is a web of wires and blinking LEDs from laptops, smartwatches, and scores of other gadgets. Analysts spend weeks performing hands-on testing to produce in-depth buying guides that help readers get the most from technology.
But what if that wealth of content is reduced to grist for a bigger mill? Google’s new AI search experience pushes links to articles below the digital fold, summarizing the response to a search query up top as a conversational, ChatGPT-style paragraph. Content in the answer, a mini-article in itself, can theoretically come from PCMag and a host of other publications.
To start, this AI experience will only apply to searches for which Google algorithms can produce helpful results, The Verge reports. But it’s unclear how many searches that will cover, and whether Google will compensate or cite its sources. The company has said only that it’s “committed to continue sending valuable traffic to sites across the web.”
Writers watching a live demo of the new experience at Google’s I/O conference found it chilling. “Did Google receive that e-bike and set it up?” asks Angela Moscaritolo, PCMag’s health and fitness expert. She reviewed the Aventon Aventure Ebike, which the demo suggested for commuters as “good for hill climbing.”
“Did it take it on the beach and all over town to determine if it’s actually good for hill climbing? If you didn’t verify the claim your AI is presenting, then you need to cite that source,” she says.
With what we’ve seen from Google thus far, users can’t truly know if the information came from a PCMag article, customer reviews, marketing claims on a manufacturer’s product page—or some undistinguished mish-mosh of all that. The even more chilling thing for society as a whole? If Google goes down this path, that source material could end up less likely to be from trusted publications and sources, because the revenue hit they take means they may not be around.
C’Mon, Google: Don’t Trigger a Web Media Meltdown!
The backlash has already begun. AI—and its tendency to plagiarize—is at the forefront of the writers’ strike in Hollywood. And multiple visual artists have filed lawsuits against AI image-generator platforms like DALL-E and Midjourney for using their work without compensation. (Full article.)
There were already ton of bots before already so we should have get worried before.
Does anybody else have overloaded telephone poles in their area?
Mine are so loaded up with big, thick, black wire that the poles are coming down.
A.I. will have to first, address the wiring issue, and then it can proceed to take over.
msn? KAKA
Google is almost useless. It’s already using ai generated sites and giving 3 pages then bs for the next 200 pages and has been doing this for years. Google is for if you want to check on what they’re doing programming people or, how far they’re censoring something and if you want to make Google think something about yourself etc.