Sep 22, 2023·edited Sep 22, 2023Liked by Michael Spencer
Good sum up of the last couple months. It begs the question of whether to adapt or change careers, but I don't think we're quite there yet (I will almost certainly change my mind in a matter of years I'm sure). In my mind, Google is trying to vertically integrate. What happens when Bard starts taking over the function of blogs/reviews/websites? Want to get on the top of search -- gotta pay for it buddy. A sad future if that becomes the case, but then again, perhaps that's when their dominance of search (or whatever it will be in the future) can finally be threatened properly. Nice piece.
Let's hope that AI derived content is already beginning to seal its own fate, with near infinite recursion of AI learning from diminished quality AI content/data, resulting ultimately in humans shunning useless unimaginative mush. We can only hope.
It is easy to paint Google as the bogeyman in this story. But you make an important point at the end that turns your story on its head.
"It's currently impossible to spot the difference between machine-generated content and human work."
Back in 2022 Google's algorithms and most people could quickly spot AI generated content, it got flagged as spam and took an SEO hit. These llm tools have evolved to the point that there are no algorithms that can tell the difference between human generated and AI generated content. Google can only go on user engagement signals to see if content is good or not, those old AI detection signals simply don't work anymore. Every time Googles algorithms change there are winners and losers in the SEO world, it has been a fact of life for some time.
Yes, as Google start to sell more AI services they don't want to shoot themselves in the feet and punish their customers who use them to create content. That is one factor. But Google are also chasing the competition in the AI space. They do not hold monopolistic power in AI as they do in Search.
You only have to see ChatGPT's sales figures to see the extent of people using these tools. The AI has won. Does this mean we will be dominated by AI created content created by small content factories? Maybe. But more to the point will people know the difference, or even care?
If the AI content is bad, humans will figure out how to signal what isn't AI.
Yet recipes and news articles playing for SEO have sounded like robots for years. Even then you could quickly identify and follow good content. If Google prioritizes AI and humans don't like it, it's not a smart business move.
Unless the moral of the story is that humans are just to dumb to know any better?
I was about to comment with a question: "What is Google's endgame here?"
JJ Pryor suggested a possibility in his comment.
If Google goes for "pay or die in ranking" I agree that this would open things up to a new competitor to Google.
It's hard for me to imagine people seriously paying attention to "bought" top ranking.
I would think there would be a vacuum for a new search platform paradigm.
I'm brand new to Substack, only have one post on my new site, but if this platform succeeds at scale, it will be a new and significant content universe.
Which hopefully won't be overtaken by growth hackers: Example;, "How to 10X your leads in three months."
Back in December I wrote about the proliferation of “generic content” (text, images & videos):
A flood of general knowledge and general opinions. You might read essays, blogposts, art or even books entirely created with AI. They will likely lack personal feeling, emotions, or empathy. Some of it will be indistinguishable from human creations. I don’t necessarily agree that AI won’t create any new ideas, as Paul Graham tweets below:
“If AI turns mediocre writing containing no new ideas into a commodity, will that increase the "price" of good writing that does contain them? History offers some encouragement. Handmade things were appreciated more once it was no longer the default.”
Brands and creators with authentic, ingenious, original, creative, unique, human content will succeed. Personal opinions, distinctive styles, and live formats will be valued highly. Influencers who talk about personal topics or share knowledge in a personal way will succeed over those who merely share information. Media brands and publications who merely aggregate information or write generically will become irrelevant. We will see lower value in knowledge and information aggregation (e.g. Google) and higher value in character, opinion and “craft”.
Good sum up of the last couple months. It begs the question of whether to adapt or change careers, but I don't think we're quite there yet (I will almost certainly change my mind in a matter of years I'm sure). In my mind, Google is trying to vertically integrate. What happens when Bard starts taking over the function of blogs/reviews/websites? Want to get on the top of search -- gotta pay for it buddy. A sad future if that becomes the case, but then again, perhaps that's when their dominance of search (or whatever it will be in the future) can finally be threatened properly. Nice piece.
Let's hope that AI derived content is already beginning to seal its own fate, with near infinite recursion of AI learning from diminished quality AI content/data, resulting ultimately in humans shunning useless unimaginative mush. We can only hope.
It is easy to paint Google as the bogeyman in this story. But you make an important point at the end that turns your story on its head.
"It's currently impossible to spot the difference between machine-generated content and human work."
Back in 2022 Google's algorithms and most people could quickly spot AI generated content, it got flagged as spam and took an SEO hit. These llm tools have evolved to the point that there are no algorithms that can tell the difference between human generated and AI generated content. Google can only go on user engagement signals to see if content is good or not, those old AI detection signals simply don't work anymore. Every time Googles algorithms change there are winners and losers in the SEO world, it has been a fact of life for some time.
Yes, as Google start to sell more AI services they don't want to shoot themselves in the feet and punish their customers who use them to create content. That is one factor. But Google are also chasing the competition in the AI space. They do not hold monopolistic power in AI as they do in Search.
You only have to see ChatGPT's sales figures to see the extent of people using these tools. The AI has won. Does this mean we will be dominated by AI created content created by small content factories? Maybe. But more to the point will people know the difference, or even care?
If the AI content is bad, humans will figure out how to signal what isn't AI.
Yet recipes and news articles playing for SEO have sounded like robots for years. Even then you could quickly identify and follow good content. If Google prioritizes AI and humans don't like it, it's not a smart business move.
Unless the moral of the story is that humans are just to dumb to know any better?
Well written and thoroughly researched article.
I was about to comment with a question: "What is Google's endgame here?"
JJ Pryor suggested a possibility in his comment.
If Google goes for "pay or die in ranking" I agree that this would open things up to a new competitor to Google.
It's hard for me to imagine people seriously paying attention to "bought" top ranking.
I would think there would be a vacuum for a new search platform paradigm.
I'm brand new to Substack, only have one post on my new site, but if this platform succeeds at scale, it will be a new and significant content universe.
Which hopefully won't be overtaken by growth hackers: Example;, "How to 10X your leads in three months."
Great article, thanks for pointing that out.
Back in December I wrote about the proliferation of “generic content” (text, images & videos):
A flood of general knowledge and general opinions. You might read essays, blogposts, art or even books entirely created with AI. They will likely lack personal feeling, emotions, or empathy. Some of it will be indistinguishable from human creations. I don’t necessarily agree that AI won’t create any new ideas, as Paul Graham tweets below:
“If AI turns mediocre writing containing no new ideas into a commodity, will that increase the "price" of good writing that does contain them? History offers some encouragement. Handmade things were appreciated more once it was no longer the default.”
Brands and creators with authentic, ingenious, original, creative, unique, human content will succeed. Personal opinions, distinctive styles, and live formats will be valued highly. Influencers who talk about personal topics or share knowledge in a personal way will succeed over those who merely share information. Media brands and publications who merely aggregate information or write generically will become irrelevant. We will see lower value in knowledge and information aggregation (e.g. Google) and higher value in character, opinion and “craft”.
You can read more here: https://dematerialzd.substack.com/p/man-and-machine-a-new-era