Yeah, if this kind of search gets any traction, small publishers will be f'ed. The big names might be able to sign lucrative deals with Big Tech. Smaller websites on the other hand will just get scraped for profit and left with fewer eyeballs to monetize.
But I'm still not convinced, that products like Perplexity and SearchGPT will be all that useful for complex questions. When I search for some answers, the credibility of the sources I find in search engines is a very important consideration. How will bots like ChatGPT qualify if some info it spits out is credible or not? I see a lot of potential for manipulation here.
Manipulation is certainly a concern, I agree. There will always be organizations which push aside ethics, insofar as the law allows, in the pursuit of profits.
That said, I believe there is an increasing awareness among users about transparency, ethics, and privacy. That awareness will push a lot of people - though not all, or even the majority - of people towards organizations who
do value those things.
As more and more people pay attention to those things, and choose their services and products accordingly, those organizations who do not set aside ethics and instead value transparency and truth (or at least the pursuit of a balanced presentation of truth) will see financial success.
On the issue of increased complexity in questions, my assumption is that the development of AI will be exponential, not linear. It’s impressive today, but still makes blatant errors often. I said the same of many other earlier technologies when I was a kid in the 80s/90s. Hell, I had a Newton and remember seeing the
potential in the handwriting recognition, even though the day’s implementation was incredibly flewd (lol).
Long way of saying: “I agree, but I’m hopeful”.
