Technology @lemmy.world 🃏Joker @sh.itjust.works 1w ago

As AI and megaplatforms take over, the hyperlinks that built the web may face extinction

theconversation.com As AI and megaplatforms take over, the hyperlinks that built the web may face extinction

Links have been essential tools for navigating the web and sourcing information – but they are on the decline as tech companies try to keep audiences from clicking away.

31 comments

If you think hyperlinks have any danger of going extinct, I have shares in a crypto-based AI-powered bridge to sell you.
- But will it integrate NFTs?
  
  BRB, raising another round of capital to integrate NFTs
- I believe it means existing links, which many are already gone. Not the ability to link.
  
  Sigh... so clickbait title strikes again? I wish I was surprised.
So the problem is that AI based search engines dont give credit to their source sites because they do not link to the source site, but instead steal the content in a legally untested method and serve that up.

Nothing to do with links going extinct.
- To be fair, it isn't aware of what source it's using. It's not "referencing" anything in particular. It's just trained to replicate a bunch of data. It doesn't understand it or anything. It doesn't know what came from one source and what came from another, and how accurate any of those are, or what the context of it is. It just generates something that resembles it's data based on the input.
  
  It can if it’s using something like RAG.
- Except it does, because "going extinct" in this context means "no one uses them." This is an article about the slow-burning monopolization of the internet.
- Humans have the same problem :(
- That’s why I like arc it links to what it gives you info from
Can we carve out a part of the internet please where we go back to super basic html pages that are a mix of self hosted hobby blogs and university research sites? It was good then. Everything's gotten so noisy, and busy, and shit.
- There is Neocities and a few other sites that allow you to make and share your own sites. Though some sites are more than just basic html, so experience will vary, but you can find basic pages dedicated to hobbies and such if you sift through them. Only problem with these sites/services, assuming the other ones are run like Neocities, is that you are given a pretty limited amount of space.
- Gemini project is doing that
- Gemini, the protocol is built on never adding new shit, so it's only basic pages
  
  Lovely :)
- Try Wiby
  
  There's other types of "small web" out there too.
- The browser you're looking for is literally called Links.
  
  Links is just a browser, it doesn't fix the websites themselves Search engines gatekeeps websites away, making it borderline impossible to find anything SEO optimized makes way too much noise to find anything meaningful And JavaScript makes browsers like Links borderline unusable
- Just use tor browser on strict mode and you'll find it. They do exist.
  
  Interesting. Is that because it blocks JavaScript, ads etc?
- Time to build a new one and this time, dont tell investors.
  
  "The first rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two twice the price?"
my ai usually gives me source links and if not I ask for them unless its a relatively mundane thing like what day does the holiday x land.

31 comments