Google Search Is Dead, etc.
cryptoniteventures.substack.com
cryptoniteventures.substack.com
I'm always evaluating these models to make sure that the people I interview remotely for my company don't cheat. There are certain questions the models are good with, but they will often produce very predictable answers (a lot of lists for open-ended questions). On the other hand, for many specific technical questions, they will predictably give wrong answers. Perplexity.ai will fail to find some of the same content that Google would if they indexed the same blog or documentation. Both ChatGPT and Perplexity are horrendous at reasoning within day-to-day knowledge of any senior knowledge worker, there just aren't enough parameters. Therefore, they often can't help with questions in that context.
On the contrary, it will only become larger and more profitable. The general public will jump at the chance to use AI assistants run by corporations. They already enjoy their products in exchange for their data and attention (for "free"), so sharing their personal thoughts is just another step. In turn, advertisers will pay big money to get access to this data, and plug their ads in deeply personal conversations, pushed by someone they trust. "Oh, I'm sorry you feel that way, Brian. Have you considered going to X to buy Y?"
> Web3 entrepreneurs are busy leveraging blockchain, crypto, and AI to fix it, and they will. Soon, we will turn the tables on Big Tech, and the Goliaths will have to pay us to participate in their marketing schemes if we so allow.
It sounds like this person is part of a tech bubble, and can't see the forest for the trees. The average person has no idea, nor cares about Web3. The Web3 scene is full of crypto bros who think that if only the right technology comes along, it will disrupt the current web. They're focused so much on the tech, that they don't realize that the average person doesn't care about privacy, and just wants to use a product for "free".
The way forward will not be solved by tech alone. It requires massive efforts to educate internet users about what they're signing up for, and then providing a better experience that they can't get elsewhere. So far, most attempts to disrupt the current state of the web have received minimal traction. At some point you just have to accept that the current web is not going anywhere, and that your alternative products will never overtake it. And that that's fine. Niche products can still be successful, and provide value to people who use them.
I think the original article is correct, but not for the reasons they think. You are quite correct that the average folk doesn't give a damn about the tech bubble peculiarities and absolutely don't care about trading their piracy ("like I have anything to hide lol" is quite an oft sentiment I heard). I agree with you there.
But... the average folk don't have infinite patience, or money for that matter. They don't know tech, sure, but at the same time they are getting sick of being milked for subscriptions for literally anything and everything -- all the video streaming services, ChatGPT, cable still exists, internet at home, mobile internet... delivery services for gods' sakes!!! They want you to pay a subscription and the first 10 deliveries for the month are free. There are other examples, many of them.
You don't have to be a tech guru to at point exclaim "I am sick of all that streaming crap. They think they can get away with everything! I'll pirate movies! You know any good sites?" -- and I have in fact witnessed non-tech-savvy people exclaiming exactly that.
Of course all of that is very different compared to an actual useful AI -- if we ever get that. I am quite sure that people would gladly shell out for that. But the general point still stands; the current desperate spasms of the internet darling companies -- that FINALLY realized they have to start monetizing or investor money will dry out -- will end only with their deaths (or at least severe restructurings).
Again, people don't want to be milked for every little thing. You don't have to have an university degree for that.
My point is that most people are perfectly happy with giving up their privacy in exchange for getting a service without paying. If we want more people to use privacy-focused alternatives, we first need to educate them about the implications of what they're giving up, and even then I suspect that most people would be fine with the transaction.
For example, Netflix's ad-supported tier has been very successful[1]. If anything, services are moving from a subscription-based model to an ad-supported one, because it's both more lucrative and people prefer the experience to paying for a subscription. So I wouldn't be surprised if all subscription services also adopt this same model. If nothing else offering it as an option for people who don't want to "be milked" financially, but are fine with being milked for their data and attention. Even more egregious are cases where you both pay for a subscription, but also get served ads, of which we've seen many examples.
[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/netflix-ad-su...
Nothing. I don't claim that at all. Make web search paid and it immediately becomes "a weirdness only obsessed techies pay for" which is another thing I heard from non-tech people when I explained Kagi to them.
> My point is that most people are perfectly happy with giving up their privacy in exchange for getting a service without paying.
And I agree. They don't care.
> If we want more people to use privacy-focused alternatives, we first need to educate them about the implications of what they're giving up, and even then I suspect that most people would be fine with the transaction.
Forget about it. Educating the wider public never works unless it's something that is hitting them right where it hurts, today. Otherwise they will never pay attention.
Not to mention that if we arrive at a "Minority Report" world -- where your retina is constantly scanned and you will receive personalized video + audio ads in real time as you pass by buildings -- many people will welcome it, as you yourself alluded to.
People like you and me who want to opt out are not welcome in that system.
The way I see it, we are already living in cyberpunk... without all the cool body modification and implants that are prevalent in this form of art. Only the ultra-corporatism is here.
> For example, Netflix's ad-supported tier has been very successful
This is a general critique on humanity IMO. A lot of people are content sitting lazily on the couch and checking their phone and snacking on chips while ads are running. One could easily argue they are fully within their rights to have these preferences -- job is hard, marriage is not perfect, colleague is giving them hard time, or kids are in a difficult stage etc.
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My broader point was that the very myopic corporate squeezing of consumers will spell their death for the very simple reason that the normal consumer doesn't have an infinite wallet and at one point people sit down and start re-prioritizing expenses (f.ex. I am sure both you and me know people who dialed back their video streaming budget because these services have been getting more and more insolent with time -- increasing prices, playing ads even when you pay etc.) -- meaning that the ideal imagined reality of the corpo executives where they can do whatever shenanigans will make their shareholders less miserable, simply does not exist.
Or in even shorter terms: corpos can increase prices and add hidden fees, but inflation and increased annoyance by all their practices puts a hard ceiling on the regular consumer's expenditures.
This is IMO the natural way out of the current (and very weird) economical situation with the electronic / internet services we see around the world.
The problem is that they're focused on getting rich or getting richer, not on the tech. The tech is only interesting to them if it offers a method of early investors being set up for a lifetime (or eternity) of completely passive income.
I'm working in peer-to-peer, and everything that I find within the web2/cryptosphere incidental to the problems I'm working on is hopelessly focused on convincing people to trade cash for new tokens. You do find a nice idea or implementation here and there, but mainly you only see what a concept would look like as the disguise for a con.
> the average person doesn't care about privacy, and just wants to use a product for "free".
This is a lie. The average person cares about privacy far more than the average programmer who spends all day trying to come up with new ways to subvert privacy. I've literally never had a conversation with a "normal person" about privacy, especially in the US, where it wasn't an extreme priority for them. They just 1) aren't technically savvy, and often don't understand that since computers can cheaply focus on everybody at the same time, everybody is worth paying attention to, and they 2) are shrewd enough to know that if there are truly private options, they'll be quickly eliminated or subverted by governments.
Bragging about not being interesting enough to pay attention to is just a way for some incurious people to signal to the people around them that they're not hiding any dirty secrets. There's also the instinct to be protected by the herd: if I'm doing the same thing as millions of other people ("buying IBM"), they're not going to hurt all of us. It's a very dumb instinct to apply especially to technology working at scale, but also even to entities like massive corporations, billionaires and states who will kill you without even noticing.
One may not think they're going to round up everyone who has ever read a particular book, or has criticized a president even in conversation with their cousin in a bar, or everyone who ever supported a political party that won the last election, but it's happened many times, all over the modern world, using index cards, punchcards, and handwritten lists compiled at local police stations from networks of informants, and handed up the chain to death squads. Pol Pot even got down to everyone who wore glasses being a potential source of trouble.
You say it's not a tech problem, it's an education problem. I say it's neither, it's a political problem.
We must've been talking to different groups of people, since the most common response I've received when discussing this topic is "I have nothing to hide". And this is after first having to explain that these services aren't gratis, and that they're paying for them with their data and attention. The second most common response, coming from even tech-savvy people who understood this, was "I only use it infrequently". I don't remember talking to someone who understood the risks, and cared enough about their privacy to want to make a change in their habits.
> You say it's not a tech problem, it's an education problem.
It is partly a tech problem, but my point is that tech alone won't solve it. People first need to understand the implications of using these services, and then decide for themselves whether they accept those terms. The unfortunate thing is that most people (judging from my conversations) are perfectly fine with that transaction, as long as they get to use a service without paying. The idea that the general public will somehow choose to pay for an equivalent—and in reality, more often than not, inferior—service just to safeguard their privacy is wrong. This is only the case for tech enthusiasts and a minority of people who are willing to sacrifice the experience, and who value their privacy more than the experience.
> I say it's neither, it's a political problem.
I think your concerns of governments using this information for "evil" are overblown. Yes, that is a risk, but in reality people are more likely to be targeted for advertising purposes than for persecution because of their beliefs and actions. Of course, governments will always want access to this data, and there's arguably a legitimate interest I think most people would agree is good (e.g. stopping actual terrorism and national security threats), but people getting persecuted because of their beliefs is low on the list of possibilities in most countries, even though this has happened before in history.
I do agree that this is partly a political problem, but from a different perspective. Governments need to be involved to improve regulation of tech companies, and to better educate themselves about technology in general. Laws need to be passed to not only limit the reach of tech companies, but also to provide tech education to the general public early on in children's lives. Parents are struggling with controling access to technology to their kids, and it's unreasonable to expect them to protect their kids from billion-dollar corporations that build services designed to be as addicting as possible. Kids are growing up with an increased reliance on technology that they believe is benevolent, and it's making future generations complacent with side effects that are yet to become apparent.
Interesting if that's occurring in proportion to AI.