Thought-provoking Things Worth Sharing - Issue #168
Is there a point to running a website in the age of "everything AI?"
I spend a significant amount of time reading about AI and sharing the insights I gain on my website and in this newsletter. Recently, I’ve been noticing a trend across multiple articles and posts about the challenges of AI in attracting an audience to a website. Let me give you some examples:
Welcome to this week’s collection of thought-provoking things. For each issue, I will share information about careers and workplace culture, mental health in the workplace, talent development, and key insights into privacy, security, and legal technology.
You can learn more about me here: Mike McBride Online.
AI Scraping Bots Are Breaking Open Libraries, Archives, and Museums.
Devs say AI crawlers dominate traffic, forcing blocks on entire countries.
That’s just a sample of the problem, which I think breaks into two distinct, but related, issues.
One, AI crawlers are out of control. You can instruct bots not to crawl your site, and most AI crawlers will ignore it.
Then, once they’ve crawled your site, searches for the information that is provided on the site will be integrated into the AI summary, resulting in no one coming to the site to get the information.
For a website dependent on ad revenue, this is a nightmare scenario. We should expect many more sites to be behind a paywall in the coming years.
But, even for those of us who blog or run informational websites without looking to make a profit, this means that the work we do to be a thought-leader, or educator, is for naught. No one knows we were the ones who put that on the web, once the majority of users are getting it in an AI overview instead of a link to the site.
I can easily understand why many folks would consider giving it up. The costs in terms of paying for bandwidth keep going up due to crawlers, and the benefit of putting yourself out there and networking in your industry keeps going down.
Why would we keep doing it?
I can only speak for myself, but I continue to do so because human interaction matters, even on the Web. I want to read and interact with real people, with their perspectives, thoughts, ideas, and creativity. If using AI to help get those things into the world works for you, great. I use it that way myself. I don’t let it write everything for me, because what I do here comes from me, not from AI. What you get there every other week are the things that have caused me, the human, to think.
I think that interaction is worth keeping. I hope you do as well, and I hope you will encourage others to connect with real people doing real things online and support them when you can.
The Dead Internet Theory, where the web is nothing but AI interacting with other AI tools, is within sight. I can see the path leading to it. I hope we’re smart enough not to let it happen.
Careers and the Workplace
This sounds terrible. Dystopian, even. And yet, here we are. - Employees are imprisoned in an ‘infinite workday’
The more people on your team, the better - Mentors vs Sponsors: And Why You Need Both.
I get the idea, but it does seem creepy to me. I’m not sure I want AI measuring how well everyone does their work and assigning “skills” to them. - People Skills Solution Rolls Out to Microsoft 365 Tenants.
Artificial Intelligence
The Key to Spotting Deepfakes is Deliberately Slowing Down
In a second, most people can spot obvious AI distortions. Given a few more seconds, we get even better at it. Slowing down to look at it instead of immediately reacting impacts our ability to spot falsehoods.
Speaking of falsehoods, who are we when the government is spreading it instead of trying to create safeguards?
Worth Reading - This Isn’t Law and Order. It’s Narrative Control.
I don't particularly care what side of the political aisle you're on. If we can't all agree that using fake images and videos in situations like this is beyond the pale, we are sunk. If law enforcement can create evidence and get away with it, no one is free.
We are all one image away from prison. Is that the world AI is creating?
Can your network handle all those agents? - Here's why network infrastructure is vital to maximizing your company's AI adoption.
This is a frightening study:
Interested in learning about AI? - Google, Harvard, and more are offering FREE AI courses (no payment required)
Training and Development
I'm not sure many organizations are designing career paths that allow someone to advance without becoming a manager, yet still grow in their careers. We haven't been creative enough to create those career paths, nor have we been curious enough to determine what younger employees want from their jobs.
This is a larger flip than you think it is. Many organizations provide a ton of learning when onboarding someone, and that’s all. - Transforming Onboarding into a Culture of Continuous Learning.
If you are asked to do this, you might want to keep this handy:
How to Create a Training Session Quickly
Mental Health in the Workplace
Worth Reading - Your 'Culture' is a Lie Until You Fund Mental Health
The culture you describe would be working toward solutions to the epidemic of burnout and anxiety. Especially the stress that results from financial instability, caregiving responsibilities, and discrimination, to name a few. A good workplace culture addresses these issues by providing a living wage, flexibility, and equal opportunities, among other benefits related to quality mental health care.
An app doesn't show that you care, and if you don't care, you have no culture.
Privacy, Security, and Legal Tech
Enough said - No-Nonsense Guidance for Lawyers Still Confused About AI.
Speaking of lawyers and AI, it’s popular, but full adoption is not widespread:
Washington State Lawyers Show Limited AI Adoption Despite Growing Interest, New Survey Reveals
From a couple of years ago, but still relevant:
Learning Legal Tech – The Struggle for Attorneys
Learning the details of how data is processed for review or how it is collected takes time. For lawyers, time is money. How many lawyers can afford to dedicate that much time to diving deep into the technical details? The CLE hour requirements for technology are nowhere near enough time to complete this work. How do we encourage more lawyers to learn this stuff?
That’s all, folks. If you found something interesting in this week’s newsletter, please share it with your friends. It’s the best way to help support the effort I put into sharing this with you each week.