1008 sats \ 3 replies \ @davidw 25 Mar \ on: Will AI end the social internet? AI
If there is more information online I don't believe it makes it any less valuable. People's attention and people can and will still be online, given the option, but how we interact with it can be transformed.
Example of too much content
- Take TV. We can spend countless hours each day channel-hopping on cable TV. Or we can get the 4minute short-form video digest or watch a trailer or read third party review or just go straight to watching the best series on-demand. We don't even need to record it. There is far more choice in content today than when TV became mainstream and yet people still watch TV all these years later. In spite of the internet.
- IMHO searching for a page or lingering on a website will be seen as ineffective and brain-dumb also. That means there's an opportunity for the content that is shared amongst us to be more rich, educational and fulfilling.
- And advertising. Think how much cumulative capital is misdirected at internet advertising today. Why do we need advertising when an A.I can order what you need and has your financial interests at heart? So much of our time is spent watching mindless adverts, just think how many hours that is worldwide. It's unnecessary and limiting productivity.
IMHO, with A.I there will be far less 'wasted' time on the internet like today. When we can have a new interface to interact with the internet, we can become much more efficient with our time interacting with the social internet. That means we can spend MORE time on the internet, more time interacting with our favourite people. Or less if we prefer, but that's our choice. And technology allows us to do more with less. I would bet most people will still opt for more time online, and using more compute power, in order to become more productive with their resources and/or more addicted.
We haven't even optimised the 2D internet yet. When we have 3D holograms like you mention from Star Wars, do we not think people will love interacting with their favourite people that way? The spatial internet might just extend its lifespan beyond what we envisage today.
Just because there are exponentially more voices, more bots and pieces of information out there, doesn't mean we can't filter-out content from our known contacts. A.I will certainly filter information for us, so that we see the highlights and digests or at least have them for reference. That might make some of us more fickle and less patient, but in general I think it will bring more autonomy to choose to be online more or less. Or (as I mentioned above) both at the same time.
I don't think we disagree based on this comment. I'm not arguing AI is bad or even that AI is bad for the internet. I'd argue the opposite.
I'm mostly saying it's bad for the social internet of the kind we currently have. Social interactions on the internet will turn super insular if my thinking holds up. (And I'm not saying that's bad either ... just different.)
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I can see that now. I should have spent more time zooming-in on the social side. I think your conclusion is astute.
But even insular conversations can still scale and bring more value than we see today. Potentially less visible spam, fewer distractions & more meaningful conversations could germinate.