How did we get into this mess? Several companies claim to oversee services that billions of people around the world contribute to. We've come to rely heavily on Google to point us in the right direction, and now Google can exercise ownership over the content that guides us. A few executives at Google shouldn't have the power to change the Internet, but they do. they are. And there seems to be little we can do to stop them.
Google announced a number of new features coming to Google Search this week at Google I/O, but the most notable was an introduction to AI. These are designed to quickly answer user queries. Type or speak your query into Google Search and Google will find the answer and generate a response for you. It's on the page.
“Google does the Google searches for you,” said Liz Reid, Google's head of search.
Google's AI model “Gemini” is the key. The company looks forward to using the world's most sophisticated and extensive library of information to provide you, us, with these answers.
Google acts as the gatekeeper of the Internet because it not only provides instructions on where to go to get information, but it also provides a large number of advertisements. That money goes into the publisher's pocket and ends up paying for more content. I admit to being optimistic about the difficult and diverse business of publishing, but this is generally how it works. Sprinkle in a little cash flow from affiliate marketing and you'll get revenue reports for many non-ecommerce websites.
So what happens when a publisher's content receives fewer pageviews? The stakes are higher, investment funds are lower, advertising is poorer, and content becomes more desperate to attract visitors. Masu. Internet “encitization'' is ultimately a financial issue.
And Google has a say in all of that. It's at the heart of the internet, whether you use the service often or not. This has been a problem on many fronts for years, as the company seeks new ways to provide information and make money through search, the internet's index.
first ad. Information taken directly from the website was then displayed on the search page. This action got Google into trouble with multiple countries and even his own EU. The bloc's legislation, adopted by member states, hoped to curb Google's plundering of content without fair compensation for publishers' work. Google responded by removing or threatening to remove the service from some countries entirely. Google News said he was finally brought back online in Spain in 2022.
With the advent of Google's AI-powered search, we may learn what happens when Google reduces publishers' ability to secure decent revenue. And the results are not very good.
Google said of the changes: “As we expand this experience, we remain focused on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators.” That line appears in a slew of AI news, with only a few links to read the results in more detail, with no further clarity on how the AI intends to do it. Not yet. Reid told reporters before I/O that he expects traffic to increase from users wanting to dig deeper into topics for which AI provides answers, but suggested it remains to be seen whether that will happen. .
Google has indicated that it will only begin rolling out AI outlines when it believes it will provide the greatest benefit from using AI. However, there is nothing explicitly preventing gradual expansion into traditional search engines.
With Google departing from its previous format and refusing to reimburse publishers, it's easy to see why many are concerned. The New York Times published an article titled “Can Google Answer AI Without Breaking Her Web?” The NYT is currently suing OpenAI over its use of articles to train chatbots.
@kevinroose writes that publishers are understandably horrified by Google's plans to incorporate AI into search results. “The big deal that underpins Google's relationship with the open web – you give us stories, we give you traffic – could be disrupted.” https://t.co/Lhgx1dt4lLMay 14, 2024
Similarly, Google's CEO has been asked whether the company is interested in OpenAI using YouTube videos to train competing models. I'd be surprised if Google wanted that fight, given its position in AI.
This problem ultimately stems from larger questions about AI. In other words, who is free to collect data for use in training and operating artificial intelligence systems? Copyright owners of videos, images, and text are all concerned about mass data collection for training AI systems. I'm ringing the alarm. However, we are talking about collecting, processing, and reusing information in real time. Under UK law, copyright infringement by elevating articles (quoting facts published by others) is not protected unless the article is copied verbatim, other than as a quotation. That means there's no obvious solution to Google's latest feature.
Publishers may use tags to disable many of Google's rich results features.At first glance this too Deprive AI of content usage. However, since AI Overview takes up a portion of the search results page, it pushes down any naturally occurring content and has already been gradually losing rankings over the years. However, Google could adjust the size to make it more usable, and may have already done so during early development. This feature is not entirely new.
However, Google should be challenged for its actions. That's perfectly fine, since it seems to go against his own Google recommendations on how to create good content. As a company that holds the keys to the internet, publishers have long struggled to heed Google's advice on how to get seen on their platforms. Creators are encouraged to follow four basic principles that he calls EEAT.
E stands for experience, E stands for expertise, A stands for authority, and T stands for trustworthiness.
How quickly can these be achieved with fewer readers, fewer views, less money, and an AI leaning in to copy everyone's answers for Google's benefit? It might work for a while. No, but then the money will flow out and the content will inevitably deteriorate. At what point does a decline in original content lead to a horrible user experience where Google's search AI spits out erroneous responses? It's already pretty poor, and some would argue it's doing that today.
The obnoxious Google AI that appears at the top of every search result is both unconditionally wrong in interpreting your question and providing new answers that are completely wrong to the questions it created. It's very impressive that there is.May 15, 2024
Not to mention the risk of misinformation from a third party (Google) coming in and altering the words, eroding the credibility that individual publishers have earned.
oh my god. Of the 19 answers provided by Google's AI search, 17 are clearly wrong. This is worse than useless. pic.twitter.com/O6fHMMPhTwMay 15, 2024
For a system that is increasingly at odds with the actual content creators, why should Google profit from the efforts of others? I'd love to know.
Everyone involved in the Internet has the right to make major changes themselves. A move away from the giant corporations that claim to run things and back to a community of people who are willing to share their thoughts and space with others. The Internet was not created by his Google, nor was it improved by him. Now more than ever, it feels like Google is just getting in the way.
