commit 34c2b7bba98b5e1a16b29961c8411910049f6023
parent 9ac66cd91d3144616db3590615d937db646145bc
Author: FIGBERT <figbert@figbert.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2024 20:47:26 -0800
Add commentary on Om's Musings on AI+Media
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diff --git a/content/posts/musings-on-media-in-the-age-of-ai.md b/content/posts/musings-on-media-in-the-age-of-ai.md
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+title = "Biting the Hand That Feeds You"
+date = 2024-12-24
+[extra]
+type = "link"
+link = "https://om.co/2024/12/21/dark-musings-on-media-ai/"
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+
+> Unlike search engines, AI platforms are built on precision and
+> summaries. They’re unlikely to be a major source of traffic or
+> advertising revenue. What about getting paid for the summaries OpenAI
+> serves in response to prompts? These prompts will vary widely, as will
+> the responses, breaking the traditional mass-media revenue model. As I
+> explained in my “future of browser” article, information itself is
+> being atomized, which will likely upend the web and media as we know
+> them.... OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity... won’t need the media for
+> long.
+
+What does it mean to not "need the media" anymore? Chatbots know nothing
+of the observable universe—they are fed media, during and after
+training. OpenAI et. al. do not experience events as they happen.
+Reporters are on-site witnesses and produce original analyses that
+comprise both the news we consume and the content AI is fed.
+
+> The internet was originally envisioned as a place for connection,
+> collaboration, and discovery. But over time, it has been distorted by
+> business models that prioritize engagement metrics over meaningful
+> interaction. Discovery has long been the open web’s greatest
+> challenge, with search engines turning it into an SEO game and social
+> platforms creating algorithmic echo chambers. AI platforms are making
+> discovery almost irrelevant.
+
+This is because the greatest challenge has always, in fact, been
+monetization. Before the internet, you could sell people the paper your
+news was printed on to fund its production. When the internet first
+arrived, it was a toy and money wasn't a factor. When real people came
+online, money made everything bigger and better but also introduced ads,
+engagement, and the rest of that garbage fire because we've all agreed
+that web pages are free.
+
+If ChatGPT takes over the internet and we say that news companies can't
+make money through their existing channels anymore, they will need to
+find yet another way to pay their staff. I hesitate to say that we are
+running out of business models, but we are certainly burning through
+them at an alarming rate. More importantly they all seem to suck.
+
+> You stay still, but your AI agent goes out and fetches, distills, and
+> synthesizes the content and renders it in whatever format you want —
+> audio, video, or text. This is the future.
+
+Not if there is no content to synthesize, because they have been driven
+to bankruptcy. Mass media is an invention, not a necessary constant. If
+AI obsoletes the news by providing people with a mouthpiece that they
+prefer, without providing a backstop for the companies that produce its
+sources, it will run out of material to synthesize.
+
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