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A mashup of AI generated images with a prompt meant for a text generation AI.
Write a 1,500 word blog post on the topic "the Internet is about to get really weird" talk about how AI tools such as ChatGPT will be changing the way content is created and what is shown.
We actually tried this prompt on ChatGPT and were really dissappointed.
If you've been living in a cave for the past 3 years and don't know what ChatGPT is or, even worse, you're like "WTF is AI?", this post is ABSOLUTELY not for you.
Good day.
Or...maybe you want to flex those Google search mussles, get the gist of it and then come back for some fun.
Any AI system is as good on any field as the data it was trained on. At the risk of popping your sci-fi bubble, think of anything AI today as a glorified book nerd with a massive memory and an ability to regurgitate it with inhuman paraphrasing ability. That's it, really. No, really.
The operating word here is paraphrasing.
It is not, once again, IT IS NOT creating scheisse.
These systems rely on what's called tagged data, that is, data that has tags attached to it. Like a dog picture with the tag "a picture of a dog" or "this is a traffic light" - what's Google's recaptcha's obsession with traffic lights, taxis and crosswalks about anyway?
When you feed enough of these pictures, blog posts, biology books, medical reports as tags for x-rays and a very, very long list of content, these algorithms (they're nothing more than that...I'm talking to you, tin-foil hat guy) are able to basically connect dots and match a prompt - that is your now classic "write a something about something" text - against their massive database of content and spit out something that reassembles a smart summary, creative or opinion.
But add to their training material any crazy fringe material (racist content, fake news, abusive language) and you will very likely see at the very least a whiff of it in the output. And that's the danger of it: any AI tool is as good as the data its been trained on.
Considering a lot of the training material any of these algorithms use is based on openly available data - yeap the Internet, the whooooole arrange of the good, the bad and the ugly stuff out there - you are almost certain to find some crazy weird outputs from these tools and they're massifying fast.
No. Get in on it ASAP. Learn how to use it to meet your goals. Understand its limitations. Stay in loop with updates in quality and functionality. Keep an eye on how search engines are dealing with a huge inflow of content being posted with these tools. This is going to shape internet for years to come and the most immediate impact you should see is a web search battle between Google and Microsoft...what? You mean Bing?
Glad you asked.
Microsoft invested in OpenAI (ChatGPT's creator) well north of 10 billion USD for 49% ownership. Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, has already announced they'll be incorporating it in their products. For the most part, this will likely be very positive for all MS software users and will further drive the giant’s penetration in the corporate world – oh, behave.
However, ChatGPT is still mostly free. Why?
My take? Let the people use it ad nauseam and let’s learn from it. After all, so much content will be created this way that why should we not…like…index it better than Google? Create the new search paradigm maybe?
Today, SEO is basically based on what Google says is the best way to find your clients. This leads to Google getting the largest share of search ads and its been mostly unchallenged for the past 20 years.
But Google was designed for a different Internet: The Wild Wild West Internet of the 90’s. Social Media and its communities are starting to dominate content finding – just try Googling something with/without "reddit" at the end and compare the results.
This is because from the Wild Wild West the Internet was 30 years ago, social media came in a something novel happened: kingdoms arose. Closed gates of communities sharing information on their topics of interest - e.g. that nerdy discussion you had on D&D over a controversial opinion on the geometry of its dice, or that embarrassing drunken conversation you had with your ex on Facebook that all your friends witnessed in horror, but no one else, because they're not part of your community - and much of it is not available for Google to index as it is not public. And today, a very large portion, if not a majority of all content posted on the Internet is happening within these closed gates.
Sure. That’s one alternative.
But if you're keen on living a life using Internet, there's very likely a challenge coming up.
The trouble I see, is that much content itself will be created based on content that has been successful in the past (remember that training data?), so there is a huge risk of killing innovation and all the novel stuff that makes the Internet great, and bad, and ugly at times – not to talk about how some mass extinctions have been driven by feedback loops like this.
Now, having Bing becoming the search engine of choice is not necessarily a bad thing – unless you’re a die-hard Googler, Google lover, or anyone on their board.
What if Microsoft figures out a better way to find relevant things? What if, Google finds a niche that Microsoft cannot compete with? What if social media platforms like Reddit, YouTube (oops, a Google company) and TikTok figure out better ways to make their content available to those that are not part of their platforms?
Time will tell. Bottom line, the Internet is changing faster than it ever has and it’s best to get on the wagon soon.
