 If "AI answers" are the future of web search -- at least that's the common wisdom these days -- then it appears search ads will turn into paid mentions as part of the AI answers. Overt and covert strategies are possible. Like mentioning the product or vendor overtly, or not mentioning them at all, but claiming that some feature X is absolutely required (but only the paid vendor provides it). In other words, web search will be entirely corrupted, and nobody will be able to tell how. I just realized that arguably I started working on the social web in ~1999, not ~2005. At Aviatis, I created this feature where our users -- who were engineers -- could share semantic objects of certain engineering diagrams shown in a browser with each other with deep context for purposes of collaboration around those objects. That's about as social as a use case as I can think of... That was Java applets rather than HTML, but I don't think the users cared (except for the load times ...) "Well shit, we just need to blog more". The Verge on why they redesigned their site in 2022. And that was before the Twitter takeover! https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/13/23349876/the-verge-website-redesign-new-newsfeed-blogs-logo Back in civilization! Todays hike to the top of Mt Umunhum, from the lower parking lot. About 15-16 miles, depending which map you believe, and about 2400 vertical feet. Took me 6.5h including lunch. Happy with myself but sure glad to be sitting on the couch again. Here’s the view from the start of the trail. What would it take for #Mastodon to become that political organizing app instead of Twitter or Threads? Isn’t it a much more logical place? Anybody trying to make it so? Any reasons that speak against? https://restofworld.org/2024/instagram-threads-app-taiwan-protests/
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 @J12t I truly miss the way Twitter 1.0 helped activists organize and get visibility for their causes. Every time I mention the Fediverse / Mastodon to my old friends that used to organize on there, they immediately ask “what’s that?” Apparently some that tried to use Mastodon were turned off by the signup process. The network effect (lack of our community on here) was another problem for adoption. I want to make it my mission to get them on here - and encourage their friends to join too We need to invite Scientific American to the #fediverse. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-must-face-down-the-expanding-anti-reality-industry/ I’ve heard somewhere that democracy dies in darkness. “In a series of paragraphs that are up there as being among the most shocking I have read in my journalistic career, the Post acknowledged on Saturday — dropped in the middle of the holiday weekend, more than a week after the Times’s report — that they had known about the flag since at least January 20, 2021, and had not revealed knowledge of it until May 25, 2024.” https://www.lawdork.com/p/washington-post-bombshell-washington
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For the past few years, I’ve been running #WeDistribute, a tech blog / news publication dedicated to open source, decentralized social communication systems. It’s evolved from a tiny personal blog to something that kind of resembles a news outlet. This is a musing on my journey, and my hopes on where I can take this thing. https://deadsuperhero.com/2024/05/my-hopes-for-we-distribute/
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  @laurenshof Funny and sad. BTW how are people getting these answers? By just searching at google dot com? When I do that, I don't see any result labeled "AI Overview" in the All tab. Maybe a good thing, but I'm just curious. Why would Google News basically randomize the order of the results in their search? I want to know what's new in the press about the #fediverse and I have to manually scan the whole list. This may well turn out to be an extremely important article for adoption of the #fediverse beyond its current niches. https://digiday.com/media/why-publishers-are-preparing-to-federate-their-sites/
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 @cstross …which is why I don’t use it for that purpose. Of course, I’ve asked ChatGPT for nonessential programming, like making a Quine in 6502 assembly, and it succeeded in doing that. But for normal work, I don’t dare touch it because if it makes a mistake, then I will have no idea how to fix it.  Nothing is as practical as a good theory. I don't know who said it first, but they were right.
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 @JoeUchill remember When people said that robots revolting and attempting to extinguish humanity was just science fiction and could not happen? This is it, this is how it starts: this right here! It has already begun.  @JoeUchill I will do you one better, here is a research paper, fully peer reviewed and edited (more than once), published in an eminent scientific journal. Imagine two identical #social #networks with mainstream users. Same number of users, same connectedness of the social graph, same demographics etc. Social network A only has an algorithmic feed. Social network B only has a chronological people-I-follow feed. What would the usage numbers look like in comparison? Numbers of posts, numbers of likes/replies/boosts, growth trajectory, etc? I would expect somebody has done some research on this. Anybody know of any public results? Over on #bluesky, somebody pointed me to this very fascinating thread on this topic: https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3kp7lfkssxl2q What an amazing opportunity to do the opposite of the shiny new thing called “AI”. Let’s go. https://www.computerworld.com/article/2117752/google-gemini-ai.html Fascinating results in this global survey on democracy and related subjects. One tidbit: everybody says that fighting climate change is important, but wants others to do that not their own government. https://www.allianceofdemocracies.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/DPI-2024.pdf |
Gregory's Server
@J12t all the more reason for a decentralized and community-governed search engine!