The Internet Isn't for Humans Anymore | Hacker News Reader

The Internet Isn't for Humans Anymore

chrbutler.com

22 pointsdelaugust17 comments

Unfortunately, the internet hasn't been for humans for a long, long time. I think of recipe sites where the actual recipe is waaaay down the page, low density articles needlessly fanned out across multiple pages, or YouTube videos on fixing your dryer with 10 minutes of useless lead-in. These patterns are now so common we almost forget how much better it all once was.

I point so many questions towards GPT / Claude that I used to google search and it feels so much more like I'm getting an answer than a scavenger hunt. Just the facts, you know?

I'm not sure how content authors work in this new reality, but things needed to change. I miss the early internet that was just experts sharing knowledge because they loved the topic and wanted to help and educate others. The best example to me of what the internet once looked like is Inspectopedia: https://inspectapedia.com/aircond/HVAC_Blower_Fan.php

A dear friend of mine, now sadly deceased, created a filter for just the sort of obnoxious recipe site you describe: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/recipe-filter/ahlcd...

There's a Firefox version as well, and it works.

> I miss the early internet that was just experts sharing knowledge because they loved the topic and wanted to help and educate others.

That internet didn't end willingly, it was intentionally starved to death by search engines for the sake of the ad-ridden sludge.

It still exists to some extent, and is impossible to find. You can't even find a book review or discussion of major, influential works (not fucking fiction and entertainment, which we're deluged with), stuff you could find easily in the internet 20 years ago. All you get is Amazon and Goodreads, also owned by Amazon. The only reasonable book reviews I can find these days are contemporary reviews in journals, because at least journals are still indexed. If it weren't for sci-hub, an illegal project and enemy of the state, I wouldn't even be able to read those.

I feel sorry for kids these days. At least we had libraries. The libraries that I went to as a child have had successive remodelings where each has resulted in fewer and fewer books. And those books tend to be fiction, or condescending lectures by middle-class morons about how you should feel about other people.

When the pull the plug on google books, archive.org, sci-hub, anna's archive/libgen etc., which are basically outlaw sites, there will be nothing worthwhile left.

I find it strange that bots are considered distinct from humans. Bots don't spring from the ether, they're made by humans - even the AI-powered bots.

It might be better framed as "half the Internet's traffic comes from a subset of power users who automated their interactions with the web." Maybe we need less "agentic design" and more APIs.

This is a great point, as far as the understanding of "bot" is concerned. Although I think the overall point is that the bots create an algorithmic determinism toward information.

I do agree with the overall trend the author is observing, but I guess what I was getting at is that this is sort of an old problem extending to the web.

There's a unique social stigma around "bots" that isn't applied the same way to power users of any other system (understandably so, given some are nefarious). I believe this largely gave way to AI-powered bots, as there's a demand for bots to behave as humanly as possible to 1) minimize obstructions like 403s and 2) maximize the extraction of information.

Maybe if web servers were broadly designed thinking of bots as power users, the web would bifurcate into a "optimized web" for bots (APIs), and a "traditional web" for humans (HTML). Instead, we're getting this mess of bots and humans all trying to squeeze through the same doorway.

I'm curious to see the tipping point where content on the internet will no longer be relevant for users: no matter how hard you'll be searching, you'll only find crap generated content designed to lure a bot into thinking it's great content for humans.

The big question is where to go next; where should we (the humans) go to talk and search for things that aren't a den of bots that will flood the entire content until they disgust everyone, as is the case with today's big search engines?

A large part of the population can move on private platforms that use their personal data to generate profit. But I think I'm not the only one who doesn't like this idea.

So the next question becomes "where should we (the humans who want our right to privacy respected) go to talk and search for things, that isn't a den of bots"?

> So the next question becomes "where should we (the humans who want our right to privacy respected) go to talk and search for things, that isn't a den of bots"?

There will be no place. Even private platforms will (do) have all speech reviewed automatically and changed or deleted to conform with the platform's editorial policies, which will be informed by government and billionaire threats. Our only place to speak freely will be with our family and friends in person, and they will be encouraged to inform on you.

We will not be able to learn about the world, and if we know something about the world, we will be considered a danger and forced into silence or arrested. All mainstream media outlets and communications platforms support this. Many of your neighbors support this.

In a decade or two, you won't be able to tell AI sludge apart from real people writing, and it won't be because the AI sludge got better.

> Even private platforms will (do) have all speech reviewed automatically and changed or deleted to conform with the platform's editorial policies, which will be informed by government and billionaire threats.

I tend to agree in the extreme...but do not overlook the power of spectacle. Trump is a half decent example of the power one can generate and harness to some degree.

> Our only place to speak freely will be with our family and friends in person, and they will be encouraged to inform on you.

We'll be carrying listening devices on us and meeting within earshot of smart assistants, smart TVs, ring cameras, game consoles, cars, and anything else they decide to shove microphones into. Our devices are so convenient that they will inform on us so that we won't even have to inform on each other.

What’s a “bot” in the context of the essay? I suspect a large amount of that “half” could be useless telemetry (data collected but never used), billing (friction on human activity) and the like.

AI has the potential to minmax networking and capital, leaving humans behind. Eventually, humans may stop cleaning the dust from the cooling fans of this system that no longer meaningfully benefits them. The way I see it, AI is the largest threat network capitalism has ever seen.

"AI's capacity to optimize networking and capital allocation could exacerbate existing inequalities, potentially marginalizing human involvement in economic systems. As AI-driven efficiencies increase, there's a risk that traditional roles and benefits for humans could diminish, necessitating careful consideration of policies to ensure equitable outcomes in an increasingly automated world. Addressing these challenges will require proactive measures to safeguard human welfare while harnessing AI's potential for societal benefit." --AI

The AI is not wrong. The issue is expecting competent, proactive safeguards from a group of people whose only motive is to secure every last penny and every last inch of power that they can. I simply don't see it happening; greed will be the undoing of greed.

greed will be the undoing of us all.

What do you mean when you say “AI” in this context?

Do you mean sci-fi level AGI, automation in general, text generation AI like gpt, or statistics based prediction methods like classic regression?

Increased efficiency makes systems more fragile though, so minmaxing isn't actually a good outcome. Long term at least.

Next quarter we may all get a bonus, unless a rival AI exploits our fragility...

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