Generative AI will probably make blogs better
Generative AI will probably make blogs better.
Have you ever searched for something on Google and found the first one, two, or three blog posts to be utter nonsense? That's because these blog posts have been optimized not for human consumption, but rather to entertain the search engine ranking algorithms. People have figured out the right buzzwords to include in headings, how to game backlinks, and research keywords to write up blog posts about things they know nothing about. Pleasing these bots means raking in the views—and ad revenue (or product referrals, sales leads, etc.).
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) may have been the single worst thing that happened to the web. Every year it seems like search results get worse than the previous. The streets of the internet are littered with SEO junk.
But now, we may have an escape from this SEO hellscape: generative AI!
Think about it: if AI-generated search results (or even direct use of AI chat interfaces) subsumes web search as a primary way to look up information, there will be no more motivation to crank out SEO-driven content. These kinds of articles will fade into obscurity as the only purpose for their existence (monetization) is gone.
Perhaps we will be left with the blogosphere of old with webrings and RSS (not that these things went away but they're certainly not mainstream anymore).
This, anyways, is my hope. No more blogging to entertain the robots. Just writing stuff you want to write and share with other like-minded folks online.