For better or worse, AI bots are slowly taking over the internet, with AI tools generating content that is then reprocessed by other AI tools to provide AI answers from their own AI systems.
This means that over time, the internet is becoming a copy of copies, and the rich details and nuances of the original content are being lost due to the increasing inundation of AI.
That's why this is such an interesting change.
This week, 404 Media released a report explaining how Instagram uses AI-generated post summaries to boost its rankings in Google search.
As you can see in this example, the description “Meet the banana-loving bunny…” was not written by the post author, but was added by Meta AI to improve the search ranking of this post.
And the caption is actually much longer than that. 404 Media found another example:
“Seattle cosplay photography is a treasure trove of inspiration for fans of the genre. Check out these real cosplay locations and photos taken by @mrdangphotos. From costumes to locations, get information on how to recreate these looks and capture your own cosplay moments in Seattle.”
None of this was written by humans, but generated by Meta AI, and Meta acknowledged this in a statement to 404 Media.
Meta recently said To help people better understand your content, we started using AI to generate post titles that appear in search engine results..
However, while helping people is clearly not the main focus here, to maximize the discoverability of your IG content, the target of these redundant, keyword-filled descriptions is Google itself.
So, essentially, this is content written by AI to appeal to Google's AI system and improve your search rankings.
Is this really the direction the web is headed, with AI bots communicating with each other, coordinating each other's code, and using their digital understanding to decide what's most relevant?
It's a less human internet, a less human-centered experience. But if it makes sense for Meta to do it and it can automate the process of driving more users to the app, it will do it.
I feel like this is also an example of AI. ahouroboros In this effect, the bot essentially eats itself over and over again in order to manipulate its own systems.
Of course, there is also the concern of misunderstanding, and these summaries provide misleading information that is not what the poster intended. Meta would argue that this will improve over time, but it would be impossible to understand why someone posted something and display that caption correctly every time.
Perhaps the counter-argument is that this will get more people to see these posts, which is a good outcome for the creators anyway, but it feels like a step towards an even worse experience with regurgitated, repackaged, and reused code tricks designed purely to game another AI system.
And things are only going to get worse. According to a recent report, More than 50% of articles on the web are now generated by artificial intelligence, and people are looking for ways to maximize the profitability of AI tools, with unauthorized and unauthorized reproduction being the primary method.
And again, as more AI content is pumped out, more AI content goes back into the meat grinder, churning out new offerings of misunderstood, diluted, and eroded human input.
At what point do AI tools become less valuable and actually useless in a creative context? If so, what does the market capitalization of generative AI as a product mean?
It also reinforces my opposition to social platforms where anyone can easily create posts with AI in-stream. Social media is supposed to be about “social'' connections between humans. While we can debate the definition of “social” in this regard and whether engaging with AI entities also qualifies, the foundation of social media is rooted in human connection.
Which AI bots cannot be replicated. Sure, they can offer something similar, but AI bots aren't experienced enough to produce artwork that truly resonates.
That is the essence of art and creativity: celebrating what humans can achieve through passion and dedication. But engineers seem intent on supplanting this technology by making it possible to do the same thing with the push of a button and without any effort.
Is that what people really want?
If you think so, I think you'll be disappointed with the end result.
