AI versus Marshy #2: Generative AI copying everything, literally anything + dating?

Hi and welcome to the next edition of “AI vs Marshy”.

This week I’ll share about:

• 🦃 The Verge opined about generative AI gobbling up the old web - is this a bad thing in the long run?
• 🛠️ Tool of the week: Literally Anything
• 💔 But Dating? When dystopian sci-fi arrives in the present

You can also get a social advice video shoutout if you make it to the bottom.

Scroll on!

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Was the Old Web Due for an Overhaul? Big Tech’s Woes with Generative AI

There’s an excellent snapshot of what’s happening to big tech companies at the moment with generative AI. The Verge shares the problems with scraping large volumes of content, building improbable conclusions from probable-based data, and the challenges with owning original content.

This quote is gold:

In recent months, the signs and portents have been accumulating with increasing speed. Google is trying to kill the 10 blue links. Twitter is being abandoned to bots and blue ticks. There’s the junkification of Amazon and the enshittification of TikTok. Layoffs are gutting online media. A job posting looking for an “AI editor” expects “output of 200 to 250 articles per week.” ChatGPT is being used to generate whole spam sites. Etsy is flooded with “AI-generated junk.” Chatbots cite one another in a misinformation ouroboros. LinkedIn is using AI to stimulate tired users. Snapchat and Instagram hope bots will talk to you when your friends don’t. Redditors are staging blackouts. Stack Overflow mods are on strike. The Internet Archive is fighting off data scrapers, and “AI is tearing Wikipedia apart.” The old web is dying, and the new web struggles to be born.

There are ways this problem may be solved in the future and its a huge focus for OpenAI, Google et al.

The web is filling with generated crap. There’s a great read from 6 months earlier talking about the expanding dark forest and how the open layers of the web will become increasingly impenetrable.

I accept it creates a crappier experience with the tools we’re familiar with. Reddit. Facebook. Google.

But who was benefiting the MOST from providing these services? All of these companies have worked hard to accrue LARGE amounts of user-generated data - and then sought to gate keep these by being a singular source of information.

The problem that generative AI is shining a million lasers on is that when a company does this “manually” - like meta-crawling the web, gatekeeping content people post, or harnessing the enthusiasm of niche communities at scale - it appears like it is normal.

The “old web” relies on us looking past the fact that these companies are profiting HEAVILY from the content others produce.

Generative AI also profits from the content others produce - but it’s an accelerating problem that magnifies that disparity by 10,000% and counting.

The rate of change for the web is going to increase and nobody honestly knows how it’s going to end.

I believe it was due for a shake-up anyway.

The creative efforts of a collective of people shouldn’t be commidified by a select few tech companies the most.

That’s what the “old web” was and I’m excited for change.

Tool of the week: Literally Anything

Don’t do it Marshy. You’re better than this.

I saw Literally Anything a few weeks ago and thought - “here we go, another bullsh*t tool*”.* But - it’s kind of good.

You visit the URL and type in what you want. And then it builds it. Literally anything. When I had a go I told it to build a landing page for my new service offering and it was okay.

My friend Reevesy created an insight generator and it’s fun to play with if you’re a strategist, creative, or ad w*nker. He built it while on the train. Have a go and let me know if you come up with any fun use cases.

Can AI leave online dating as an awkward and painful exchange please?

For the times I’ve been single I’ve hated the process. RSVP, Gaydar, OKCupid, Grindr, Scruff… depending on what life stage I was in. I almost missed the latest wave of apps (Tinder, Bumble, Hinge) yet my divorce saw to it that I needed to get onboard those too.

There’s an ancient interview with Tim Ferris and a hacker named Samy Kamkar where the hacker essentially leads with “fck you” as the opening gambit on of these platforms and from a data perspective this actually had the most success converting into dates as a male approaching a female. F*ck you? We can do better people.

Yet this pales in comparison to the next wave. There’s a new wave of AI tools that can act as dating co-pilots. I understand how these things can work, but it’s icky.

Don’t believe me?

Spend the 8 minutes watching this short film called Sight - it’s worth it trust me.

The movie has a bored tech bro playing with his AI goggles and eventually plays the “dating game”. Plot twist: it’s creepy AF and this is a road that leads to BIG problems.

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Enjoy the newsletter?

I did. And that’s what COUNTS 🫶🏻

Reply and let me know what would make it better for you and I’ll do my best for you 🙏🏻

What have I been up to?

I launched speedmarketingdemos.com this week and am excited to start making a LOT of videos. I believe there’s scope to tell people how to do this stuff, teach them, do it for them, and build systems for it to make it repeatable for them.

I’m still playing with the page but if you get in quick and fill out a 1-minute form I’ll be able to turn one out for you before I add payment mechanics.

Have a great weekend and we’ve got this 💪

-Marshy

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