Things are moving fast. This is an interesting time to be in tech. AI techniques for generating images, text, and code are all coming online with fascinating results and no doubt long-term impact on all aspects of our lives. ChatGPT has definitely taken a lot of my free brain cycles. I am watching this space very closely, learning how to leverage, protect, and accelerate. I suggest that you learn as much as you can. This is going to be a thing.
Google announced Bard AI, Alphabet’s next step in search and AI. Bard looks like the right thing to do for the search giant. My use of Google has plummeted since Dec 2022. I have just thought about it less. And, I am just as surprised as you are. Google has been suffering from websites that are overfit to Google’s algorithm. Listicles, clickbait, SEO, keyword stuffing, and AdWords have caused surfing to be obnoxious. Try looking for car reviews or product reviews. Look at what recipe sites had to do just to get our clicks. I just don’t get answers anymore. I only get sites that are highly tuned to be at the top of the sort filled with keywords. Google’s model has forced us to game the system for attention all the while Google is pulling out website content and presenting it directly on the search results (which decreases clickthrus). Bloggers like myself create a lot of content that gets used in these large language models. SEO doesn’t work anymore. We have to build our audiences and communities in different ways. Google relies on ad revenue from websites. I believe that this is at risk, but it does not mean that creators immediately benefit. More on this later.
Bard is one of my favorite character classes in role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. A bard is a jack-of-all-trades kind of character and really fun to play and interact with. A bard is a storyteller. I am a bard. Bard AI is a text generator. I am a text generator.
ChatGPT, Bard, and the many others that are about to be released are really, really good at generating pleasant text. Text that looks like something that could be meaningful. We are all entering this new world together. Again, I urge you to take a closer look at these tools and share what you learn. Join me directly on The Quandary Discord server.