Ask HN: Will personal websites gain traction as AI content floods the web?

> Will this fact make us seek out more personal content from sources we can put a face and a name to?

I've been mostly doing this for years now, because of the general decline in the quality of websites that has been going on for a long, long time.

> A personal web of trust that sharpens the line between content made by humans and AIs?

The problem, of course, is what you alluded to -- how can we know what's made by humans and what's made by AI? I think that my already limited use of the web is likely to decline to nearly zero because of that issue.

> The problem, of course, is what you alluded to -- how can we know what's made by humans and what's made by AI? I think that my already limited use of the web is likely to decline to nearly zero because of that issue.

Do you not think that a web of trust could work as a bulwark against this trend? I imagine long-time bloggers that already have a good reputation can help seed trust by recommend other people they know personally and can vouch for.

Yes, but to a very limited degree. In order to be effective, it has to be a web of people who personally know the people they're vouching for, and I'd be less inclined to take the word of people too many hops out from me. I may trust my direct friends judgements, but I'll have lesser trust in the judgement of friends-of-friends, and so on.

But in any case, what it means is that I'll have a small "personal web" of sites, and that would be the entire webosphere to me. It's a bunker kind of situation, and pretty much the opposite of what the web really should be.

As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, it's likely that people will value human perspectives and personal connections even more. This may lead to a resurgence in personal websites, blogging, and other ways of sharing human experiences, opinions, and knowledge. In addition, it might encourage people to invest more in building their online presence and reputation, showcasing their expertise and credibility in their respective fields.

This is how an AI would sum it up ;)

ChatGPT wrote this

Please don't do this

Maybe, but only if there's a foolproof way of keeping the AI out.

Why would I want to write high quality content if it's going to be sucked up by some AI, mixed with other lesser quality content, and vomited onto unsuspecting users with part of the attribution given to me?

No thanks. I'm pretty much ready to flip the off switch on technology.

I would certainly use a search engine that weighted heavily against the current style of SEO articles and towards real blogs and good sites. The top links on Google are indistinguishable from AI articles as-is, so I don't think Google is interested in providing this service.

In my opinion, yes.

Over the past few months, I've been working hard to craft a distinct writing style.

If you look at my selected essays on my /about page, you'll see that I'm trying to do things that can't easily be copied. Or if they are copied, people might attribute the style back to me haha

[1] https://taylor.town/about

I also think it's going to be super important to foster genuine human-to-human connection as AI becomes more prevalent, so I'm starting a small tech conference!

Join us in Southern California this August! It's going to be a blast

[2] https://outland.sh

I don't think so, because so few people have much to contribute.

AIs work because the web is "done". All of the information in the world has already been transferred to the Web.

People have long complained that the Web isn't as much fun as it used to be. They usually blame it on some kind of nebulous power that forces new stuff out, but I think it's because there just isn't that much new stuff.

There's always news and the march of technology. But radically new and important things don't actually happen all that often. People already consume far more news than is good for them, hoping for that dopamine rush of novelty.

So nobody cares about your 100% human generated web site, because it's just not all that interesting. How many things will you create in your lifetime that's really worth anybody taking note of?

We've already got aggregators, that try to look for a few interesting things every day. Somebody's art piece, some bit of news, some nifty project. But any individual home page is only going to be interesting on rare occasions.

The aggregator's job is to filter out the vast amount of crap that people generate hoping for attention. That's a problem that preceded bots. It has been listicles and memes and clickbait -- microscopic bits of novelty that people hype as if they were more.

The solution is not to certify the web sites, but to stop relying on the Web to provide you a constant stream of novelty. Rather than looking for something interesting, be interesting.

As AI content floods the web, no one will bother creating personal websites, unless it's to sell something. That’s what 90pct of the web is already.

A few people will maintain their newsletters and Patreons, but that is paid content that isn't exactly personal.

Why will they not bother? I'll continue blogging.

Happy to disappoint you. But I started adding more content to my personal website which was really just a CV on a wordpress website… with the help of ChatGPT. It looks genuine and all the content is very tweaked. My calendar entry now has a task to write content alongside ChatGPT for an hour every week and schedule it to be posted randomly. Started getting some followers on LinkedIn because of it.

How long until Google penalizes you for AI generated content in terms of SEO?

I ask for things in a human tone, they can penalize you ;]