The rapid changes brought about by artificial intelligence are affecting the principles of the Internet.
In recent months, the signs have been piling up with increasing speed.
Google is trying to change that search mode. Twitter abandoned to bots and in blue teak. There is one big Amazon downgrade and humiliating TikTok.
Layoffs are destroying online media. A job posting looking for an “AI editor” expects to “yield 200 to 250 articles per week”.
ChatGPT is used to create entire spam websites. The internet is flooded with “AI generated garbage".
Chatbots refer to each other in a rampant misinformation.
LinkedIn uses AI to stimulate tired users. Snapchat and Instagram hope bots will talk to you when your friends won't.
The Redditors organize a blackout. Stack Overflow features are on strike.
The Internet Archive fights data scrapers and "AI is breaking up Wikipedia".
The old web is dying and a new web is struggling to be born. The web always dies, of course. It's been dead for years, killed by apps that divert traffic from websites or algorithms that reward certain pages and reduce attention spans.
But in 2023, it's dying again – and, as all of the above suggests, there's a new catalyst in play: artificial intelligence.
