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The Internet Is About to Get Much Worse (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 1 year ago by JRepin@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.world

80 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/5400607

This is a classic case of tragedy of the commons, where a common resource is harmed by the profit interests of individuals. The traditional example of this is a public field that cattle can graze upon. Without any limits, individual cattle owners have an incentive to overgraze the land, destroying its value to everybody.

We have commons on the internet, too. Despite all of its toxic corners, it is still full of vibrant portions that serve the public good — places like Wikipedia and Reddit forums, where volunteers often share knowledge in good faith and work hard to keep bad actors at bay.

But these commons are now being overgrazed by rapacious tech companies that seek to feed all of the human wisdom, expertise, humor, anecdotes and advice they find in these places into their for-profit A.I. systems.

(page 2) 31 comments

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[–] Meowoem@sh.itjust.works -2 points 1 year ago

'everything new is bad and scary' I really don't understand why this viewpoint is so common in a tech community.

AI will solve so many problems with the current internet and make it far easier to use. And there's no such thing as over grazing Wikipedia, I certainly wrote my small portions of it very aware that it's going to be used by ai and it's a great thing, plus they can certainly afford the bandwidth.

[–] Meowoem@sh.itjust.works -5 points 1 year ago

Traditional media says thing that displaces them is terrible and scary and should be stopped... we've heard it before with the internet, with social media, and right back to TV and radio...

It will be the greatest discovery tool for human crested content that we've ever had. Imagine being able to sort all the junk and actually find what you're looking for, being able to actually filter stuff and search within context. And imagine not needing a journalist to string together their assumptions and sketchy understanding of science but being able to ask questions and get answers that draw from press releases, released papers, interviews, and public statements.

Yes it will get harder to use the web like we did ten years ago, but that's ok because doing that is already rubbish.

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