(This is the second of a three-part series on the changing internet media landscape.)
I know you’re tired of reading about AI. Well, too bad. I went through a lot of trouble to write this, including having to remind myself how to spell Tannhäuser, so we’re gonna do this.
I’ve removed my Information Security Hat (made with 100% real tinfoil!) as well as my Official Futurist Club™ LCD Wristwatch. We’re going to focus on the practical implications of generative AI to the existing content and media makers on the internet.
I see your attention drifting.
Last time you did a Google search, you might have seen an AI - generated answer, or at least an invitation to view an AI-generated answer. Google calls this a “Search Snapshot.”
That’s cool, you think. I don’t haver to scroll through these results, find a site, click it, navigate the ads and clickbait, and then decide if it’s a good enough answer to my question.
This is, if you are one of those websites, not cool. Potentially not cool at all. We discussed last time how advertising is the major revenue source for most online media, and how visits and views are the grist for that mill. If your question got answered by Google’s friendly AI, right there at the top of your window, you’re probably not going to click one of those links below, right? Those links that some marketing team has spent a lot of time and money to make happen.
There’s an unavoidable implication to employment here - the type of talent, the relative value of talent, and the constancy of the need for that talent on staff will all definitely change.
(If you’re keeping score: so far Google has decided to upend the online advertising marketplace, in which it is the 800-lb gorilla, and is now on a path to disrupt the $50B+ SEO industry, over which it rules like a benign sovereign. But my tinfoil hat is way over there.)
Related, I asked ChatGPT 4 a few questions while researching this article, and it responded by first searching Bing. (ChatGPT 4 is a paid subscription, so they made money while putting the actual source of information in a footnote.)
Adapting to this trend will involve more than technology magic and a strong brand. I take no stand regarding Google’s handling of its influence, but history has shown that simply accepting the decisions of those dominating the marketplace isn’t always a path to glorious future.
Search shortcuts aren’t the only arena where Generative AI is going to have an impact on our online media:
The cost to generate content, like this article, is already getting reduced. Forward-looking tech companies (like Brightspot, my employer) are weaving generative AI into the authoring tools themselves - like an assistant, capable of anything from suggesting a headline to providing a summary to running into the archives for examples and b-roll.
The integration of AI into the tools will continue to expand: imagine reporter assignments made by a highly-connected AI, an AI that also knows the individual reporter’s skills, tone, efficiency, and recency of her vacation; an AI that has real-time knowledge of trends both on our site as well as across the internet; an AI that knows down to the letter the value of this kind of web pageview versus that kind of social medial spark.Highly-targeted, personalized content becomes very cost effective. I promised I wouldn’t play futurist, but it’s entirely reasonable to expect that every aspect of our media consumption will be tailored to our preferences, be they explicit preferences or not.
Hypersaturation of the “pull” media. We already see the highly sophisticated filtering and funneling on what I’d call “push” media, like Instagram and TikTok - the “algorithm” that invented and perfected doomscrolling. How many of us have wanted to go back to something we saw on instagram, and it proved impossible to find?
This kind of ephemerality (that’s a word, right?) and spoon-feeding may end up defining the world of “pull” media, like web articles and video, if generative AI is released to generate as many articles it can, on as many topics as it can, in real time.
…Now that I think about it, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.There’s an unavoidable implication to employment here - the type of talent, the relative value of talent, and the constancy of the need for that talent on staff will all definitely change. This does not necessarily mean joblessness for creators, but it likely does mean a pretty profound change in their role.
The well-trodden legal grounds of the first amendment (in the US, and its analogs elsewhere), intellectual property, art and copyright, slander and parody are going to all need a fresh coat of paint. At least.
Speaking for myself, I’m not comfortable with the People In Charge having the slightest ability to grapple with these topics, be they elected officials, appointed, or otherwise. I suspect that beyond a bit of nearsighted theatrical legislation, we will see little more than punditry for some time. (He said, punditlike).
AI is going to reshape the media landscape - it already is. The impact goes beyond advertising and SEO; it's altering content creation, stirring up the economics and changing the rules. It’s raising legal and ethical questions, and these are only the very tip of the iceberg
As we continue to navigate these changes, it’ll be valuable for all stakeholders - from creators to consumers and policymakers - to be actively involved. Otherwise, we’ll doomscroll our way to a place we may not want to be.