“Type how to fix broken headlight into a search engine, and it returns a list of links to websites and videos that explain the process. Ask an [AI-powered] LLM the same thing and it will just tell you how to do it.” This is not the setup for a “how many LLM’s does it take to screw in a lightbulb” joke. The world wide web ushered in an era where creators could put stuff on the internet and other people used search engines to find it. All that is changing. “The arrival of generative-AI tools has introduced a voracious new consumer of writing. Large language models, or LLMs, are trained on massive troves of material—nearly the entire internet in some cases. They digest these data into an immeasurably complex network of probabilities, which enables them to synthesize seemingly new and intelligently created material; to write code, summarize documents, and answer direct questions in ways that can appear human. These LLMs have begun to disrupt the traditional relationship between writer and reader.” Basically, AI is drinking the web’s milkshake. How will this new machinery between creator and consumer change things? WWWtf is going to become of posting, searching, and clicking? In The Atlantic (Gift Article), Judith Donath and Bruce Schneier take a crack at predicting how things might change. The conclusions may not all be right, but there’s little doubt that in many ways, It’s the End of the Web as We Know It. And I feel fine. (Actually, I’m not sure how I feel and when I asked ChatGPT, it wasn’t much help.)

+ “She needed a good metaphor as to what navigating the internet felt like in the early days. ‘It was hard. You needed some skill to do it, but it was fun,’ Polly said. Her mousepad happened to have a picture of a surfer and said ‘information surfer,’ a phrase that was already floating around. The words just clicked for her.” NPR: Meet the woman who helped libraries across the U.S. ‘surf the internet.’