Is  A.I. Really Killing Websites?

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A.I. generated content is killing websites! 

Yeesh, that might sound a little hyperbolic, but that’s never stopped anybody, including me, from making bold statements. The claim is that search engine use of A.I. responses at the top of their pages has led to less internet traffic being driven to websites that answer the search engine questions. In the past, search engine users, when looking up topics and questions, would see a series of (hopefully) relevant web pages from (hopefully) relevant websites at the top of the search engine page. 

The system wasn’t perfect, but it drove traffic to a lot of websites, and content creators who were good at search engine optimization and were hopefully experts in their website subject matter were able to predictably sustain decent traffic. Now? Search engines tend to direct (or encourage) readers to their own A.I. responses that are designed to keep readers on the search engine platforms rather than continuing research on other independent websites.

To be fair, search engines like Google do display source material at the end of each A.I. generated paragraph. Website creators, however, claim that the link displays are tiny and usually aren’t used. Readers simply trust the A.I. generated answer and move on without going to any of the original source material.  

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With current generated A.I. interference, a lot of website traffic is (allegedly) dying.  Without search engine views, a lot of websites lose their greatest source of their views.  With fewer clicks comes less potential money or attention, and without that internet traffic every day, there’s less incentive for content creators to continue maintaining their websites.  In fact, the websites might even become a liability! And if websites go away, where will A.I. get its learning material?

The possibility of more A.I. and fewer human-generated websites adds fuel to the current dead internet theory that is circulating amongst the World Wide Web (is that term even used anymore?).  According to dead internet theory, most of the Web is a wasteland of bots, poorly produced artificial content, and gambling sites. Pornography sites used to be part of it, but even that is artificially generated now (allegedly). But is the website view decrease situation truly that dire?

Websites have always been at the mercy of search engine algorithms and platform rule changes.  Content creators constantly complain that their income is getting destroyed by whatever changes various platforms come up with.  This latest change with A.I. goes far beyond income, though.  Without search engine visits, websites have fewer opportunities to gain traction or build a following, no matter how generous other parts of the terms of service might be (they probably won’t be very generous).

As the saying goes, the search engines giveth, and the search engines taketh away!

Websites aren’t necessarily innocent victims in all of this.  Over the last 20-30 years, internet websites have killed a lot of print media, including newspapers and magazines.  Sure, a lot of that print media has been converted to digital, but it isn’t the same.  There was something about holding a Sunday newspaper or a new copy of a magazine like Sports Illustrated that showed up in the mail.  I guess I could still buy a Sunday newspaper.  Nobody’s stopping me, but today’s Sunday newspapers are so flimsy compared to the old days that it just wouldn’t be worth the time or effort to get one.  

So who do I blame for the death of the periodical years ago? Website content creators? What were they supposed to do, ignore fair use laws that allow copyrighted content to be used within certain confines?   The Ivy League?  That’s usually not a bad place to start.  The teachers?  Tempting, but I don’t have kids in school anymore.  Unfortunately, I have to blame the periodicals themselves for not figuring out how to deal with the internet. 

And now websites and the general public are going to have to figure out how to deal with A.I. potentially taking views from the actual content creators.

THE SOLUTION?

The first step is to actually take an extra moment and check a couple websites whenever you get an A.I. response. At least, that’s what I do. I figure since A.I. Overviews probably took the information that I just read from one of those websites, then it’s my obligation to go to those websites, not just to give them the needed views, but also to see what additional important information they have that I can use that the A.I. response left out.

Plus, A.I. isn’t infallible. It can screw up just like any human, in a lot of ways worse than any human. The mistake it made with my blog (a couple images above) was benign, but if you’re researching something important like medical or financial stuff, then you really want to make sure the information is spot on. When it comes to A.I., distrust and verify. Always.

The second step? Website content creators (I guess this doesn’t apply only to website creators) can try changing the way they use words in their titles to attract the search engine algorithms. Since I haven’t monetized my blog, this isn’t something I worry about, but creators supposedly spend a lot of time and money trying to keep up with the search engine algorithms. That seems too much like work to me, so I’ll leave that to other content creators who care more about that than I do. I’d rather work a real job than deal with algorithms.

The third step? Uh, I only have a first and second step. I’m not sure what else I can do as an individual. Use search engines that don’t focus on A.I. generated responses? Only buying from local stores? Buying local always seems like a solution when dealing with problems caused by corporate overlords. Plus, blaming the teachers. Or the Ivy League. If you’re not sure what to do about a problem or if you don’t like any of the real solutions, blame the teachers and/or the Ivy League. It always works for me.

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What do you think? Is A.I. the threat that many critics claim? Or is the influence of A.I. overstated? What is a good third step? Are there any decent search engines that don’t use A.I. generated responses? If you’re an actual human, please leave a comment below. I really don’t want to believe that the dead internet theory is true.