Whoa. This is amazing. I think What is interesting is whats driving this: the psychologically formed habit of asking questions to bots rather than search engines.

If the median query on the internet is now and forever answered by an AI bot, humans could just as easily become really important as an "authentic" source of answers.

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toddmorey 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I agree with this, but I can’t help but reflect on how we poisoned our own well by destroying the human internet before AI.

The answers to almost every search are already out there, but we made the public internet so toxic and user hostile, you now need a whole new layer of AI to sift through the bullshit, ads, and clickbait.

I don’t think for a second that AI will not go the same hellish direction.

	▲	devmor 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Of course it will go the same direction - many of the leaders in the AI space are the very same entities either technologically or financially that are responsible for that destruction.

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devmor 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Unironically this is a "return to tradition" opportunity in the making to me.

If this really is the case, then there's an engineering solution here to re-train people by answering questions with search results first, leaving AI reconciliation for those cases where someone would be clicking the "next page" button or scrolling further.

Of course, that may not align with the perverse incentives driving whoever is behind each bot.