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I admit that I find AI search summaries useful and read them first when they are available. However, perhaps because I have several blogs of my own, I can\u2019t help wondering what are the long term consequences for the original content creators who author the content feeding AI search summaries? What are the incentives when the AI summary frequently serves as the alternative to reading what they have written and recognizing their contribution in some way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like so many uses of AI, search summaries aren\u2019t inherently harmful. A summary is just that and is different than the unique information you would get from a single source. I don\u2019t know that this is the case, but it seems a summary would be less biased than a single source. However, we risk a web where knowledge is consumed without context, creators aren\u2019t rewarded, and the public sphere narrows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, I know at least the Google summaries provide links to at least some of the original sources used within the summary. I had a feeling based on my own approach that many of these links would be ignored. When I write, I do like to acknowledge my sources. This seems the fair thing to do, but is also a way of increasing the credibility of what you have to say as readers can review the original material. This is a practice I retain from my academic training. However, I also admit, I often visit a single source and if it is appropriate to back the data or fact I want to report, I retain only that citation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I assumed that there would be quantitative data on the use of summary citations even if the companies offering the summaries do not offer this information. The data points I include in the following material come from the PEW Research Center<\/a>. These researchers found that users who encountered an AI summary clicked a traditional result only 8% of the time, compared with 15% when no summary appeared. This means users were less likely to use both the summary and the other search results. They were also more likely to end their session entirely – 26% vs. 16% without the summary. If a summary was available, further searches were less likely to follow. This was argued to suggest the overview often functions as a stopping point rather than a starting point for exploration. Even links inside the AI module get little traction and are not explored in detail. Those who did clicks occurred in just 1% of visits to pages with a summary. This is the counter argument to the argument users will use a summary with citations as a starting point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The same analysis indicated that some sources appear commonly in summaries. Several examples were provided with Wikipedia and YouTube among the most common. This makes sense as both are what people might have searched before search summaries were a thing, but also begs the question of why not go directly to Wikipedia. I suppose is the answer is you would still have to read the Wikipedia article. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We seem to be moving toward a situation in which what used to be search and what we first encountered and continue to encounter with AI tools are little different. You enter a prompt and review the response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have been thinking about what sources might be most harmed by this emerging reality. I think news sources will fare the best because many of us use a news source for immediate information and far less as a valuable archive. With the decline in the use of opportunities such as RSS, I find that most of the hits I get on my own content comes from search and the more popular posts accumulate reads gradually over time and not abruptly when first completed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Is this just sour grapes on my part? Maybe, but I do wonder about the long term consequences of this pattern. When I think about the motivation of writers, especially those of us in the long tail, this is seldom about money. It is most about the attention and the satisfaction of knowing someone has read YOUR ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I wonder if content aggregators won\u2019t become more popular if they protect content from AI access. This would seem attractive even if content creators paid a bit for this protection. The attitude that there is no difference between an individual and an AI bot summarizing your content appeals to some and an approach like this might require legal protection, but this is the only approach I can imagine that seems productive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I admit that I find AI search summaries useful and read them first when they are available. However, perhaps because I have several blogs of my own, I can\u2019t help wondering what are the long term consequences for the original … Continue reading