Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ We Tried to Replace 404 Media With AI

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

The title of this article is a bit misleading, as the story describes an experiment where the 404 authors tried to replicate their site using web scraping technology. Basically, the sites either harvest feeds and link back to the source (I made my own sites like that back in the day), copy and reproduce full text, or use AI to rewrite copied text and present it as a new article. That's not the same as having an AI write your news site for you. In my opinion, a confluence of three factors make these possible: first, Google's ad model, which makes such sites profitable; second, the technology, which makes it easier to fool Google's search engine; and third, news sites themselves, which these days rely less and less on original research and reporting.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Jun 29, 2024 11:07 a.m.

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