internet in the future essay

What Will the Future of the Internet Look Like?

The internet will turn 52 this year, but what comes next could be even more revolutionary.

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In the five decades since, the internet has transformed human existence. From how we wage war to how we make each other laugh , it's unfathomable how much the internet has shaped life in that short amount of time.

But what will the future of the internet look like in 50 years? How will we solve the challenges that we are currently facing around privacy and data protection? Should we be hopeful—or fearful—for our changing digital world?

We asked these questions to a variety of experts, researchers, scientists, engineers, and futurists. The answers we got back were fascinating, clarifying, and somewhat scary.

An Increasingly Virtual World

In 2019, the Pew Research Center released its own data about the future of digital life after canvassing 530 experts. Lee Rainie, director of internet and tech research at Pew, was one of the co-authors of the study. He says that the answers were eye-opening in terms of how our digital presence will come to further define our existence. “[In their responses], they talked about what the definition of a human being, literally, will be once this technology is available for our bodies and brains.”

According to our experts, that will come sooner rather than later. Within only the next quarter century, the way we search or use the internet will be considered “archaically clunky,” writes Judith Donath , who is a researcher for the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University and author of the 2014 book The Social Machine . Rather, our digital presence will not be separate from the physical world, but ingrained in it.

.css-2l0eat{font-family:UnitedSans,UnitedSans-roboto,UnitedSans-local,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.625rem;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;padding:0.9rem 1rem 1rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:1.75rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:1.875rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:2.25rem;line-height:1;}}.css-2l0eat b,.css-2l0eat strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-2l0eat em,.css-2l0eat i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;} “Information will be displayed, floating in the air....the web will appear in the real world, not just on glass screens.”

“Gone will be keyboards, the mouse, and screens,” continues Donath.

Toby Negrin, Wikimedia Foundation ’s Chief Product Officer, compared the internet to electricity as it becomes an “omnipresent utility, something we expect to always be available and around us... intertwined in our daily lives.”

The world in front of us will be a mix of reality and the virtual and, at times, it will be impossible to decipher which one is which. Mike Liebhold —a senior researcher at the Institute of the Future and at Apple's Advanced Technology Lab in the 1980s—writes that, in the near future, everyone will wear augmented reality glasses and use them to interact with their environment. “Information will be displayed, floating in the air ... the web will appear in the real world, not just on glass screens.”

Donath says that real-time information will forever be present for everything—and everyone—you cross paths with. “Strangers will be identified, with increasingly detailed information about them presented,” says Donath. “People will subscribe to different augmentations, much as we now subscribe to magazines.”

Rainie says that many of the experts he spoke to commented that separate internet-enabled devices will no longer exist. Instead, the internet will be pre-loaded into our consciousness .

“There’s this whole idea of a brain interface,” Rainie says. “If you only have to think and it will perform [the task] for you, how much easier is it to facilitate communication?”

New Forms of Communication

Our world has become smaller thanks to the digital age. No longer are one-word messages crashing in the middle of their transmission. But our experts agree that we are still evolving when it comes to internet communications. In the near-future, typing messages will go away in favor of verbal and auditory communications, much like what’s already been introduced with Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa.

“You won’t search anymore, you’ll just ask questions,” says Paul Jones, the founder of ibiblo , one of the internet’s largest collections of open source materials (like Project Gutenberg ). “It will be more like having a conversation.”

Donath says that technological advancements will adapt to this new era of vocal communications. “Earbuds will [be] replaced by invisible implants that modulate all hearing—sometimes shutting out the surrounding soundscape in favor of the virtual one, sometimes amplifying a single nearby voice; effectively all of one’s hearing will be mediated through these audio implants,” she writes.

Both Jones and Donath separately noted that predictive technologies, essentially omnipresent autocorrect, will become more accurate which will make communication faster and require less brainpower. Also, due to our ability to mix speech with augmented reality, doors will open that will allow us to understand and communicate with everyone.

“Instead of learning new languages, we will just install a translation app that allows us to live-translate our own speech in real-time,” says Jillian York , Electronic Frontier Foundation ’s director for international freedom of expression. Negrin agreed that communication will transform in the future. “Our entire knowledge ecosystem will exist online, enabling you to understand everyone’s point-of-view regardless of who they are and where they live, whenever you want it.”

To go along with vocalizations, Donath says that small gestures and gaze tracking will provide ways for us to communicate and interact with our environment more dynamically. This would also be the beginning of what Paul Jones calls “neuro-engagement.” As he describes it, this technology would be initially developed for those who cannot vocally communicate before being adopted by all. “It will be a mesh of connectivity between devices and [human] communication” where things are done via sight and thoughts.

The concept of communicating through brain waves and mind-reading has been a science-fiction favorite for years. David Brin , a Hugo-winning science-fiction writer himself, told Popular Mechanics how this could be technologically possible. “We'll have 'sub-vocal' inputs that sense words you are about to say and heed them without you having to actually voice them aloud,” says Brin. “A new aspect of the dental profession will be installing controller devices that let you click or tongue inputs, silently and invisibly.”

Rainie says in Pew’s surveying, this mode of communication and interacting with the world came up as well. However, it was often qualified with a moral quandary. “When people’s intentions and actions can be anticipated, that’s a brand new human circumstance all together,” says Rainie. “But this makes things more menacing in some of these experts’ minds because if you can figure out what’s going on in people’s brains, you don’t even have to surveil them.”

The End of Privacy

Every time you ask Alexa to send more cat food, you are giving a billion-dollar company more information about who you are. Mainly, that you have a cat who likes to eat. But also credit card information, addresses, telephone numbers, and so on. The decision has been made to sacrifice some of this potentially private information for the sake of convenience.

This will only increase. Jones says that these new technologies will become increasingly good at knowing what we want. “If you have certain habits, [these devices are] going to help you with those habits,” says Jones. “They’ll be anticipating. It will be creepy, but familiar.”

Of course, for companies like Amazon, this is how they make money. “The trillion dollar digital economy is built on harvesting people's personal data,” writes Liebhold.

Due to this, how companies market and advertise will change dramatically. It will become much more personalized and significantly smaller. So, the opposite of Blade Runner’s vision of giant, 3D holograms .

“Your wrist will briefly flicker with a beautiful bracelet you could buy, you’ll see glimpses of your living room with a nicer rug and newer furniture,” says Donath. So-called “push advertising” will be replaced by a “pull” in the form of a shopping assistant, says Brin. “When that happens, advertising will collapse.”

Rainie says this, of course, comes with a price. “There’s a trade-off. Experts believe that we will sacrifice more of our autonomy for the sake of convenience.”

A Health Data Revolution

The very beginning of the bio data revolution is already upon us with the emergence of wearable, constantly connected tech that collects information about our health. There’s an overall belief from the experts we spoke with that this could be a great thing for a society, the ability to actually have reams of data that can be applied to create better health care practices.

“We'll have a lot more information about how people really eat, exercise, and conduct their daily lives, which will allow doctors and researchers to better tailor programs to serve our needs and help us become healthier,” writes York.

“If the flow of information goes in one direction, then we will have Big Brother forever.”

Pamela Rutledge, a media psychologist agrees. “Biodata has the potential to improve [the] delivery of needed medical care, educational support, and other needs.”

But, of course, it all comes down to who possesses this data and how they use it. “This type of data capture has a really high upside,” explains Rainie. “If you aggregated at the population scale, you can get a lot better insight into what's going on not only in the public health arena, but also in the particular disease realm.” While the experts that the Pew Research Center canvassed had a positive outlook, it came with a warning. “But there's a sense that at the individual level, this can do real harm.”

Meanwhile, predictions about how our health and genetics data could be used to divide us , as a species, have run rampant in other spaces.

“Your biodata will be as widely known as the color of the shirt you wear,” predicts Brin. “Whether or not that's scary depends on whether it can be used to harm you.”

A Growing Pessimism

Everyone we talked to wanted to be optimistic that the future of the internet will mean harmony, togetherness, better communication, free-flowing information, more convenience, and a healthier world. But all of that hope came with a ton of caveats and qualifiers.

“There are big, complicated problems that we are still wrestling with,” says Rainie about the responses he received. “It feels like a transition or inflection point. We’ve got to fix problems now and make sure the worst doesn’t happen.”

Part of this, like with every new technology, is that it takes time to fully understand the implications of the internet. Toby Negrin from Wikimedia Foundation says that “we’re in the adolescence of the internet at best,” and still have a long way to go to really comprehend what it all means.

“As complexity increases, so do the number of vulnerabilities,” says Liebhold. He says it can take up to a decade to have complete insight into all of the complexities, both positive and negative, of a new technology.

“We’re in the adolescence of the internet at best.”

The ability of government to deal with what’s next also came up often. No one expressed much optimism around that. “Governments [are] lacking the technical sophistication to appropriately offset, regulate, or even find solutions,” writes Rutledge.

This new state of being will require worldwide decisions and a unified response. “Experts say that localized responses to this will be insufficient,” says Rainie. “They talk about global treaties and international agreements. This [will] all need to occur on a global scale.” Besides perhaps the ISS and the Paris climate agreement (mostly), the world often has a hard time working together for the greater good.

There’s also substantial fear that governments, particularly more authoritative ones, will use these new technologies for their own purposes. “Governments have repeatedly demonstrated that they have the upper hand,” says York. “And I’m scared that we'll see even more restrictions on what we can say and do online.” Brin warns that 1984 may be in our future and not in our past. “If the flow of information goes in one direction, then we will have Big Brother forever.”

Jones asks if this is the end of open sourced information, something he knows well as the founder of ibiblio. “Can information stay free?” Paul Jones asks.“I used to think so, but now I think less so.”

In the end, how we deal with new technology and what the future holds for us in this new digital age may come down to how we act as humans. “Technology has always been an amplifier of human intention,” comments Negrin.

Rainie says he heard a similar sentiment. “Human nature is what it is ... these technologies can be used for bettering the human condition ... but there’s a lot of evidence that humans will want to use these tools to do the things that humans have always done to each other when they don’t like each other.”

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Matt is a history, science, and travel writer who is always searching for the mysterious and hidden. He's written for Smithsonian Magazine, Washingtonian, Atlas Obscura, and Arlington Magazine. He calls Washington D.C. home and probably tells way too many cat jokes. 

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Digital growth ... volumes of data are growing at a rate of 40% per year Image:  REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

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The internet is changing the way we live, work, produce and consume. With such extensive reach, digital technologies cannot help but disrupt many of our existing models of business and government.

As we enter the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution , a technological transformation driven by the internet, the challenge is to manage this seismic change in a way that promotes the long-term health and stability of the internet.

Why is data so important?

At the heart of the internet is data – massive amounts of it. Volumes of data are growing at a rate of 40% per year and will increase 50 times by 2020. A measure of the speed of growth is the estimate from Singapore-based Aureus Analytics that 90% of all data in the world was created in the last two years.

As mobile usage goes up, so do personal data volumes. Over half (51%) of all internet users worldwide are in Asia: China has 1.3 billion mobile subscriptions out of a population of 1.36 billion, while India has 0.91 billion mobile subscriptions out of a 1.25 billion population.

But the amount of industrial data is growing even faster. Today Gartner estimates there are about 4.9 billion connected devices covering products from cars, homes, appliances and industrial equipment. This will reach 25 billion by 2020, driven by initiatives that introduce smart meters and more efficient street lighting.

This wave of data brings challenges and opportunities, as we grapple with the best ways to govern, process and analyse it.

What opportunities and challenges will the internet bring?

The World Economic Forum launched the Future of the Internet Initiative (FII) in 2015 to help strengthen trust and expand cooperation on internet-related challenges and opportunities. Here are the four main themes of the FII project:

1. Transformation

The internet is reshaping public and private sector structures, creating new markets for business. But organizations will also need to strengthen the security of their customers’ data.

Many of the digital benefits to date have come through efficiency gains as businesses use data to tailor what they offer to customers. Another opportunity and challenge is to find new sources of income and value from digital transformation. New propositions such as city car-hire schemes are creating new partnerships, business models and platforms for bringing buyers and sellers together.

There are still more people offline than on. The United Nations has included universal affordable internet access in its Global Goals , which collectively aim to reduce poverty, advance health and education and improve the environment. The goals recognize that the internet can aid global development by connecting neglected and underserved communities around the world.

3. Governance

With technology evolving at breakneck speed, regulatory frameworks often lag behind. The rules that govern the use of all forms of data on the internet need to be relevant and appropriate to the pace of technological change.

As the internet becomes more pervasive, so do the tensions between national interests and global inter-operability. The rules governing the cyberworld are being tested on a daily basis as governments and individuals raise concerns about data security and privacy. The innovative potential unleashed by digital technologies is also raising questions about rules and ethics, as well as societal benefits and costs.

4. Security

For organizations and individuals to have the confidence to conduct transactions and exchange information, the internet has to be secure.

This means that as the amount of industrial data grows, there will be greater need for digital security services focused on protecting the integrity of devices connected to the industrial internet.

Incidents of cybercrime are rising significantly. In the United Kingdom, 2.5 million computer-related criminal offences were reported in the 12 months leading up to June 2015.

The year 2015 has seen another significant escalation in the rise of cyber threats. The United States has the most attacks, with its industrial sector, governments and education institutions the most frequent targets.

Cybercrime is considered to be the number one motivation behind the attacks, followed by hacking and cyber espionage. The increase in the range and sophistication of attacks, as well as the potential brand damage due to loss of data or blackmail, have pushed cybersecurity up the agenda for large and small organizations. The chart below shows the number of cyberattacks globally in both 2014 and 2015.

Source: Hackmageddon.com

What is the World Economic Forum doing about it?

By focusing on privacy, cybercrime, access and societal challenges, the FII initiative aims to support the internet's evolution into a core engine of human progress, safeguarding its globally integrated, collaborative and widely distributed nature.

Click here to find out more about the Forum's Global Challenge, The Future of the Internet .

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License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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Will A.I. Break the Internet? Or Save It?

Nilay patel discusses the near-future of an internet as a.i.-generated content improves..

[MUSIC PLAYING]

From New York Times Opinion, this is “The Ezra Klein Show.”

Earlier this week, we did an episode on how to use A.I. right now. Now, I want to turn the question around and look at how A.I. is being used on you right now. One of the conversations has been sticking in my head was with this person in the A.I. world who was saying to me that if you look at where use has been sticky, if you look at where people keep using it day after day, you’re looking at places where the product doesn’t need to be very good. That’s why it’s really helpful for college and high school students, college and high school papers — they’re often not very good. That’s sort of their point. It’s why it’s working pretty well for a very low-level coding tasks. That kind of work doesn’t need to be very good. It gets checked and compiled, and so on.

But there’s something else that it is working really well for, which is spewing mediocre content onto the internet. And the reason is that a lot of what is on the internet right now isn’t very good. Its point is not to be good — spam isn’t very good, marketing emails aren’t very good, social media bots aren’t very good. Frankly, a lot of social media posters even when they’re not bots are not very good.

There are all kinds of websites and internet operations that are filler content designed to give search engines something to index — filler content structured to do well in a Google result so people click on it and then see an ad.

Something you’re going to hear a lot of in this episode is the term S.E.O., and that is what we’re talking about: Search Engine Optimized. Things that are built to rank highly in Google and Bing just to get somebody to click on the website. It doesn’t always matter to that person if they read the website.

But into this comes A.I. Over the last year, Google and the big social platforms — they have been flooded with A.I. spam, flooded with fake news sites filled with stolen or made up stories. There are TikToks of A.I. voices reading random text off of Reddit, nonsensical YouTube videos for kids. It’s no novel observation to say the internet has felt like it is in a state of decay for a while.

Google search results, Facebook, Twitter, or X, YouTube, TikTok — all of it felt better, more human, more delightful, more spontaneous, more real a few years ago. So what happens when this flood of content hits this decaying internet?

And then — and I actually think this is the harder, weirder question — what happens when this flood of A.I. content gets better? What happens when it doesn’t feel like garbage anymore? What happens when we don’t know if there’s a person on the other end of what we’re seeing or reading or hearing?

Should we care? What if that content is actually better than a lot of what we’re getting right now? Is that an internet we want to be on or not?

My friend Nilay Patel is the co-founder and editor in chief of the tech news site The Verge, and host of the great “Decoder” podcast. And I got to be honest, I can’t tell from this conversation if Nilay is more or less optimistic than me because he seems to think A.I. is going to break the internet. But he seems kind of happy about it.

Before we get into the actual conversation here, we are nominated for a Webby — speaking of hopefully good things on the internet — in the Best Interview Talk Show category. We are up against Oprah here, so we are decided underdogs, but this is a voting category so if we’re going to win, we need your help. You can vote using the link in the show notes or go to vote.webbyawards.com

And as always, if you want to email me with guest suggestions or thoughts on the episode, that is [email protected].

Nilay Patel, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. This is very exciting.

Let’s just begin with the big question here, which is what is A.I. doing to the internet right now?

It is flooding our distribution channels with a cannon-blast of — at best — C+ content that I think is breaking those distribution channels.

Why would it break them?

So most of the platforms the internet are based on the idea that the people using those platforms will in some sort of crowdsourced way find the best stuff. And you can disagree with that notion. I think maybe the last 10 years have proven that that notion is not percent true when it’s all people.

When you increase the supply of stuff onto those platforms to infinity, that system breaks down completely. Recommendation algorithms break down completely, our ability to discern what is real and what is false break down completely, and I think importantly, the business models of the internet break down completely. So if you just think about the business model of the internet as — there’s a box that you can upload some content into, and then there’s an algorithm between you and an audience, and some audience will find the stuff you put in the box, and then you put an infinity amount of stuff into the box, all of that breaks.

My favorite example of this is Amazon, which allows people to self-publish books. Their response to the flood of A.I. generated books was to limit the number of books you can upload to three books in a day. This is really — like that’s a ridiculous response to this. It just implies that the systems that we’ve built to organize audiences and deliver the right thing to the right person at the right time, they’re not capable of an increase in supply at the level that A.I. is already increasing this.

Thank you for bringing in the supply language. So, I’ve been trying to think about this as this supply and demand mismatch. We have already had way more supply than there is demand. I wasn’t buying a lot of self-published Amazon books. Is the user experience here actually different?

I think that’s a great question. The folks who write the algorithms, the platforms, their C.E.O.s, they will all tell you this is just a new challenge for us to solve. We have to out what is human, what is A.I.-generated. I actually think the supply increase is very meaningful. Like, maybe the most meaningful thing that will happen to the internet because it will sort out the platforms that allow it to be there and have those problems, and the places that don’t. And I think that has not been a sorting that has occurred on the internet in quite some time, where there’s two different kinds of things.

The example that I’ll give you is, every social media platform right now is turning into a short-form video Home Shopping Network. LinkedIn just added short form videos. Like, they’re all headed towards the same place all the time because they all have the same pressures.

Didn’t we already pivot to video a couple years ago?

We pivoted to video — I actually love it when LinkedIn adds and takes away these features that other platforms have. They added stories because Snapchat and Instagram had stories, and they took the stories away because I don’t think LinkedIn influencers want to do Instagram Reels, but now they’re adding it again.

And what you see is those platforms, their product — the thing that makes them money — is advertising, which is fine. But they don’t actually sell anything in the end. They sell advertising. Someone else down the line has to make a transaction. They have to buy a good or a service from someone else. And if you don’t have that, if you’re just selling advertising that leads to another transaction, eventually you optimize the entire pipe to the transaction to get people to buy things, which is why TikTok is now — like all of TikTok is TikTok Shop, because they just want you to make a transaction. And that those platforms are going to be most open to A.I., because that is the most optimizable thing to get people to make a transaction. And I think real people will veer away from that.

So I want to hold on to something that you’re getting at here. Which, to me, is one of the most under-discussed parts of A.I., which is how do you actually make money off of it? And right now, there are not actually that many ways.

So, what you can do is you can pay some money to the big A.I. companies. So you get the pro-version of their models. There is a certain amount of enterprise software flying around. You can subscribe to versions of Microsoft Copilot, or there’s going to be more things like that, where you can subscribe to something that is supposed to get you to buy the next iteration of Slack or whatever the enterprise software is. But it is hard to not notice that a lot of the A.I. is being built by companies that exist on advertising.

Google has a huge A.I. program, Meta has a huge A.I. program, and advertising is fundamentally a persuasion game. They are trying to persuade you to do something with the advertising to buy something. And right now, it’s pretty bad. I always think it’s funny how long after I make a significant purchase I will be advertised to make that purchase again.

It’s like, you just bought a fair amount of luggage, would you like any more luggage from the same company you already bought it from? It’s a very weird — but if this gets good, what is that? What are safe business models and what are very unethical ones, because when we talk about harms and benefits from A.I., how people are making money off of it is going to be a pretty big intermediary there.

Yeah, I’ve been talking to a lot of C.E.O.s of web companies and email companies on Decoder for the past year. I asked them all the same question, why would you start a website? Why would you send an email? And so, you asked the C.E.O. of Squarespace or Wix or we just had the C.E.O. of MailChimp on the show. And her answer is a little terrifying. Like, maybe openly terrifying.

She’s like well collect enough data on you, and then we’ll know exactly when to send you an email so that you buy the right thing at the right time. And we’ll just have A.I. automate that whole process. So you come to the website for your local dry cleaner or luggage store, you type in your email address to get the 10 percent off coupon, we look at what you were looking at. And then somewhere down the line when some other data broker has told us that you searched for a flight, we will send you a precisely targeted generated email that says you’re going to Paris? Buy this suitcase that matches your style from our store at this dynamically generated price.

But how is A.I. changing that at all because that sounds to me like the thing that is already happening.

So, this is what I mean by the increase in scale. That’s the dream. This is supposed to be what actually happens, but they can only do it in broad cohorts, which is why you get the luggage email after you’ve bought the luggage email or the luggage ad, after you bought the luggage ad.

They know you are a person who used a Wi-Fi network in a certain location at a certain time, they can track that all over the place. They know what you’ve searched for. They know that you went and made a luggage transaction. You are now categorized into people who are likely to buy luggage, whether or not that loop was closed. You put some luggage in a shopping cart. But that’s still a cohort, they can only do that broadly. And these cohorts can be pretty refined, but they can only do it broadly. With A.I. the idea is we can do that to you individually — the A.I. will write you an email, we’ll write you a marketing message, will set you a price. That isn’t 100x increase the amount of email that will be generated.

So now our email algorithms will be overflooded with commercial pitches generated by A.I. And this sort of makes sense, right? It makes sense for a Google to want to be able to dynamically generate A.I. advertising across the entire web. It makes sense for Meta to invest massively in A.I. so that when you’re watching Instagram and you scroll a dynamically generated Instagram video, that is an ad just for you appears. And all of that is down to their belief in targeting — their absolute belief that they can sell more products for their clients by targeting the ads more directly. And you are in that uncanny valley, where the targeting doesn’t actually work as well as it should and no one will admit it.

When I get spammy advertising I don’t really think about there being a human on the other end of it. Maybe to some degree there is, but it isn’t part of the transaction happening in my head. There are a lot of parts of the internet that I do think of there being a human on the other end — social media, reviews on Amazon, books — I assume the person who wrote the book is a person. How much of what I’m currently consuming may not be done by human in the way I think it is, and how much do you think that’s going to be in a year, or two, or three years?

I’m guessing your media diet is pretty well human-created because I know that you are very thoughtful about what you consume and what signals you’re sending to the algorithms that deliver your content. I think for most people —

My mom’s, let’s use my mom’s.

Mom’s are good. I would love to take my mom’s phone and throw it into the ocean and never let her have it again. I openly fear what content comes through my mother through WhatsApp. It terrifies me that I don’t have a window into that. I can’t monitor it. The same software I want to use to watch my daughter’s internet consumption, I would love to apply it to my parents because I don’t think they have the media literacy — they’re much older — to even know, OK, this might be just some A.I.-generated spam that’s designed to make me feel a certain way.

And I think that is the heart of what’s coming. I think right now it’s higher than people think, the amount of A.I. generated noise, and it is about to go to infinity. And the products we have to help people sort through those things, fundamentally our intention with that. Google is the heart of this tension — you can take any business at Google and say what happens when the A.I. flood comes to you? And I don’t think they’re ready for it.

How can they not be ready for that?

Because they’re the ones making it. This is the central tension of — in particular, I think Google. So, Google depends on the web, the richness of the web is what Sundar Pichai will tell you. He used to run search, he thinks about the web. He cares about it, and you look at the web and you’re like, you didn’t make this rich at all. You’ve made this actually pretty horrible for most people most of the time. Most people — if you search Google to get a credit card, that is a nightmarish experience — like, fully nightmarish. It feels like getting mugged.

We just went on vacation. And I googled a restaurant review in Cancun, and I got about halfway through the actual review when I realized it was sponsored content by Certified Angus Beef. And just in the middle of this review, they’re like this restaurant uses this kind of beef and here’s why it’s great. And I was like — this is — I read an ad. And Google should have told me that this was an ad. Like, this isn’t useful to me in any way — like, I’m discarding this. I don’t want this anymore.

I don’t think Google can discern what is good or bad about the web. I don’t think Google has reckoned with how it’s incentives have shaped the web as a whole. And I certainly don’t think that people who are making Google search can say A.I. is bad — A.I. content is bad, because the whole other part of Google that is making the A.I. content can’t deal with that.

This helps explain a story that I found very strange. So, 404 Media, which is a sort of newer outlet reporting on tech. They found that Google News was boosting stolen A.I. versions of news articles — and we’re seeing this all over. An article by me or by some other journalist shows up in another place, very slightly rewritten by an A.I. system, with an A.I. generated author and photo on top of it. So, we’re seeing a lot of this.

And when 404 Media asked Google about this, Google News said that for them, it was not a really relevant question whether an article was by an A.I. or a human. That struck me as a very strange thing to say, to admit. Is your view that it’s because their business is in the future replacing human-generated content with A.I., and saying that’s good — like, that’s the thing happening at the center there?

Yeah. Fundamentally, I think if you are at Google and the future of your stock price depends on Gemini being a good competitor to GPT-4 or 5 or whatever OpenAI has, cannot run around saying this is bad. The things it makes are bad.

I think this is actually in stark contrast to how people feel about that right now. One of the funniest cultural trends of the moment is that saying something is A.I.-generated is actually a great way to say it’s bad.

So, I saw people reacting to the cover of the new Beyoncé album, “Cowboy Carter,” which is a picture of her on a stunning horse. It’s Beyoncé, it’s very obviously human made, and people don’t like it. Like, was this made by A.I.? And it’s like well, you know for a fact that Beyoncé did not have A.I. generate the cover of — like, you can look at it and you can discern that it isn’t. But you can say, was this A.I.-generated? And that is code for this is bad.

What about when it’s not?

I don’t know how fast that is coming. I think that is farther away than people think. I think ‘will it fool you on a phone screen?’ is here already, but ‘is this good’ is, I think, farther away than —

But a lot of internet content is bad.

That’s fair.

I mean, you know this better than me. Look, I think it is axiomatic that A.I. content is worse right now than it will ever be.

I mean the advance in image generation over the past year has been significant. That’s very real. And preparing for this conversation, I found myself really obsessing over this question, because one way to talk to you about this is, there’s all this spammy garbage coming from A.I. that is flooding the internet.

But you can imagine an A.I. developer sitting in the third chair here and saying, yeah sure, but eventually it’s not going to be spammy garbage. We’re getting better at this. And compared to what people are getting from a lot of websites, if you’re going to Quora or ask.com or parts of Reddit or whatever, we can do better than that. The median article within three years is going to be better than the median human-produced piece of content.

And I really — I found that I did not know how to answer the question in myself — is that a better or a worse internet? To take almost Google’s side on this, should it matter if it’s done by a human or an A.I., or is that some kind of — what’s the word — like, sentimentality on my part?

I think there’s a sentimentality there. If you make a content farm that is the best content farm, that has the most answers about when the Super Bowl starts, and those pages are great. I think that’s a dead end business. Google is just going to answer the questions. I think that’s fine. I think if you ask Google what time the Super Bowl is, Google should just tell you. I think if you ask Google how long to boil an egg, Google can just tell you. You don’t need to go to some web page laden with ads and weird headings to find those answers. But these models in their most reductive essence are just statistical representations of the past. They are not great at new ideas.

And I think that the power of human beings sort of having new ideas all the time, that’s the thing that the platforms won’t be able to find. That’s why the platforms feel old. Social platforms like enter a decay state where everyone’s making the same thing all the time. It’s because we’ve optimized for the distribution, and people get bored and that boredom actually drives much more of the culture than anyone will give that credit to, especially an A.I. developer who can only look backwards.

I’m going to spend some time thinking about the idea that boredom is an under-discussed driver of our culture. But I want to get at something else in there — this idea of Google answering the question. We’re already seeing the beginnings of these A.I. systems that you search the question that might — at another time — have brought you to The Verge, to CNN, to The New York Times, to whatever.

But now, perplexity — there’s a product, Arc. They’ll basically use A.I. to create a little web page for you. The A.I. itself will read, “read”— in quotation marks — the A.I. itself will absorb some websites, create a representation of them for you, and you’ll never go to the place you were that actually created that data about the past that A.I. used to give you something in the present.

Casey Newton, at Platformer, his word was he felt revulsion, and that was how I felt about Arc’s product here. You take all this work other people have done, you remix it under your thing, they don’t get the visit to their web page, nobody has the experience with the work that would lead them to subscribe. But two things in the long run happen from that.

One is that you destroy the score of growing value, growing informational value that you need to keep the internet healthy. You make it say impossible to do the news gathering that allows you to be news because there’s no business model for it. The other is that you also destroy the training data for the A.I. itself, because it needs all that work that we’re all doing to train.

The thing they need is data. The A.I. is polluting that data with A.I. content currently, but it also can begin to destroy that data by making it unprofitable for people to create more of it in the future. I think Ryan Broderick has called A.I. search a doomsday cult. How do you think about this sort of deeper poisoning of the informational commons?

I think there’s a reason that the A.I. companies are leading the charge to watermark and label content as A.I.-generated. Most of them are in the metadata of an image. So most pictures you see in the internet, they carry some amount of metadata that describes the picture. What camera was taken on, when it was taken, what image editing software was used.

So, Adobe and a bunch of other companies are like, we’ll just add another field that says, here are all the A.I.-generated edits that were made on this photo. I think it is in their self-interest to make sure that is true and they can detect it and exclude it if they need to. I think there are moral reasons to do it too.

So their training data remains less corrupted?

Yeah. I think there’s a very straightforward incentive for them to figure out the watermarking, labeling stuff they want to do. And they have coalitions, and tasks force, and Adobe talks about the image of the Pope and the puffer jacket as a, “catalyzing moment” for the metadata of A.I. because people freaked out. They’re like oh, this thing looks real. But they have a real incentive to make sure that they never train on other A.I. generated content.

So that’s one aspect, which I think is just sort of immediately self-interested. The other thing is — that’s why I keep asking people why would anyone make a web page?

There’s a site I think about all the time. It’s called HouseFresh, which is a site that only reviews air purifiers. And to me, this is the internet. Like, this is what the internet is for. You care about air purifiers so much you’ve set up a series of web pages where you express your expertise in air purifiers and tell people which ones to buy. That’s all they do. And Google has started down-ranking them, because big publishers boost their content, because A.I. is lifting their content, because companies like CNN, in order to gain some affiliate ad revenue somewhere, have set up their own little mini-content farms full of affiliate links.

I’m not saying we don’t — like, other publishers do this. But the point of these algorithms is, ideally, to bring you to the HouseFresh people, is to bring you to the person who cares so much about air purifiers they made a website about air purifiers, and we’re not doing that anymore. And so if you were to say, where should a young person who cares the most about cars, or who cares the most about coffee, or whatever. Where are they going to go? Where are they going to make stuff? They’re going to pick a closed platform that ideally offers them some built in monetization, that ideally offers them some ability to connect directly with an audience. They’re not going to go to a public space like the web, where they might own their own business, which would be good. But they’re also basically at the mercy of thieves who come in the night and take all their work away.

But also, if you kill HouseFresh, then two years later when you ask the A.I. what air purifier should I get, how does it know what to tell you?

Yeah, I don’t the answer to that question.

I don’t think they do either.

Yeah again, this is why I think that they are so hell-bent on labeling everything. I think they need some people around in the future.

But labeling is good. I mean, that keeps you from getting too much garbage in your data set. But replacing a bunch of the things that the entire informational world relies on to subsidize itself — to fund itself — like this to me is a thing that they don’t have an answer for.

Wait, let me ask you a harder question. Do they care?

Depends on they, but I don’t think so.

Or at least they care in the way that I came to realize Facebook, now Meta, cared about journalism. People say they didn’t care about journalism. I don’t believe that’s actually true. They didn’t care enough for it to mean anything. Like, if you asked them, if you talked with them, if you had a drink, they would think what was happening to journalism was sad.

And if it would cost them nothing, they would like to help. But if it would cost them anything — or forget costing them anything. If they would begin to help and then recognize an opportunity had been created that they could take instead of you, they would do that. That’s the way they care.

So when you have a financial crisis, you have something oftentimes called a flight to quality. Investors flood into the things they know they can trust, usually treasury bonds, and I’ve been wondering if this won’t happen in this era of the internet — if I wanted to take an optimistic perspective on it — that as you have a sort of ontological collapse, as you don’t know what anything is.

I already feel this way with product reviews. When I search product reviews, I get reviews now from tons of sites that I know don’t really invest that much in product reviews. CNN, all these other organizations that I have not really, truly invested in high-quality product reviewing, when you search, you now get them — they’re telling you what to buy.

That makes me trust the Wirecutter, which is a New York Times property, but that I know we’ve put a lot of money in more. Similarly, the other one I use, which is a Vox Media property, is The Strategist at New York, because I knew what the development of that looked like, I know what they put into that.

You can imagine this happening in news for things like The New York Times or The Washington Post. You can imagine it in a couple of different places. If people begin to feel that there is a lie at the heart of the internet they’re being given, that they can’t figure out what is what and who is who and if it is a who at all — I mean, maybe you just end up in this internet where there’s more of a value on something that can be verified.

I keep a list of TikToks that I think each individually should be a Ph.D. thesis in media studies. It’s a long list now. And all of them are basically just layers of copyright infringement in their own weird way.

My favorite is — it’s a TikTok, it has millions of views. It’s just a guy reading a summary of an article in the journal Nature. It has millions of views.

This is more people that have ever considered any one article in the journal Nature — which is a great journal. I don’t mean to denigrate it. It’s a proper scientific journal. They work really hard on it. And you just go 5 steps down the line, and there’s a guy on TikTok summarizing a summary of Nature, and you’re like what is this? What is this thing that I’m looking at?

Will any of the million viewers of this TikTok buy one copy of Nature because they have encountered this content? Why did this happen?

And the idea is, in my mind at least, that those people who curate the internet, who have a point of view, who have a beginning and middle, and an end to the story they’re trying to tell all the time about the culture we’re in or the politics we’re in or whatever. They will actually become the centers of attention and you cannot replace that with A.I.

You cannot replace that curatorial function or that guiding function that we’ve always looked to other individuals to do.

And those are real relationships. I think those people can stand in for institutions and brands. I think the New York Times, you’re Ezra Klein, a New York Times journalist means something. It appends some value to your name, but the institution has to protect that value.

I think that stuff is still really powerful, and I think as the flood of A.I. comes to our distribution networks, the value of having a powerful individual who curates things for people, combined with a powerful institution who protects their integrity actually will go up. I don’t think that’s going to go down.

You mentioned 404 Media. 404 Media is a bunch of journalists who were at Motherboard at Vice. Vice is a disaster. They quit, they started a new media company, and we now all talk about 404 Media all the time. This thing is 25 minutes old. We don’t talk about Jason Koebler the editor in chief. We talk about 404 Media, the institution that they made — a new brand that stands for something, that does reporting and talks about something. I think there’s still meaning there.

You said something on your show that I thought was one of the wisest, single things I’ve heard on the whole last decade and a half of media, which is that places were building traffic thinking they were building an audience. And the traffic, at least in that era, was easy, but an audience is really hard. Talk a bit about that.

Yeah first of all, I need to give credit to Casey Newton for that line. That is something — at The Verge, we used to say that to ourselves all the time just to keep ourselves from the temptations of getting cheap traffic. I think most media companies built relationships with the platforms, not with the people that were consuming their content.

They didn’t think about them very much. They thought about what was hitting in the Facebook algorithm, they thought about what Google search wanted for Game of Thrones coverage that day, which was everything all the time. And everybody had a Game of Thrones program. Fox had one, The Verge had one, The New York Times had one. Why?

That’s weird. It’s we constructed this artificial phenomenon because people searched for — I mean, just to say the answer because we know it — because people searched for “Game of Thrones” content the morning after the show, and that was an easy way to get a bunch of traffic. And at least a theory of the time was that you could turn traffic into money through advertising, which was not totally wrong, but not nearly as right as the entire era of business models was predicated on.

The other thing that those business models were predicated upon was you’d get so good at being a supplier to one platform or another with Game of Thrones content or whatever it was that they would pay you money for it directly — that Google would say, this is the Game of Thrones link that most people are clicking on. We ought to pay Vanity Fair for its Game of Thrones content to surface it. Or all of BuzzFeed was we’re going to be so good at going viral on Facebook that Facebook will pay us money.

And that absolutely didn’t pan out. But no one hedged that bet, which is utterly bananas to me. No one said we should take these people who came here for a Game of Thrones and figure out how to make them care about us, and we should care about them. Everyone just looked at it as a number that was going up against some amount of interest as demonstrated by some platform somewhere.

And I think that is the mistake. It is the mistake that creators on the creator platforms are not making, because the terms of that arrangement are so much more cynical. You see TikTokers. They at any moment their videos can get downranked, their accounts can get yanked, their stuff can get banned. They’re constantly trying to get you to go to Instagram.

Every YouTuber gets their wings when they make the video about how they’re mad at YouTube. There’s a woodworking YouTuber that I used to follow, and he just sort of got to the point where he’s like, I hate YouTube. I’m leaving. And it’s like dude, you made videos about jointing wood, like what are you doing?

And it’s like his relationship with the platform was so cynical that he was like, I’m moving my business elsewhere. You can sign up for a master class. Those individuals have these very cynical, very commercial relationships with the platforms that the media companies, for some reason, just never hedged. And so they actually do have audiences. And I think media companies need to get way back on the game of having a true audiences.

This gets to something that does worry me about this phase of A.I. hitting the internet, which is it’s hitting an internet in a moment of decay and weakness. And here, by internet, I mean the sort of content generating internet, and I break that into a couple of categories. The media is very weak right now. The media business we have seen closures left and right, layoffs left and right. I mean, a bunch of players like Vice and BuzzFeed who were believed to be the next generation of juggernauts are functionally gone as news organizations.

The big content platforms, they’re doing fine from a financial standpoint, but people hate them. The relationship between the users and Facebook, the users and YouTube, the users and — to some degree, you’re even seeing that now with TikTok — is just darkening in a way that it wasn’t in 2014.

And so, there’s a lot of desperation on all sides. Sometimes the desperation is you don’t have the money to pay the journalists you need to do the work you want to do. Sometimes the desperation is that you’re trying to figure out something to make this audience like you again and not get eaten by TikTok or whatever comes after TikTok.

And into this comes A.I., and all the money that A.I. seems to bring, and even the A.I. companies might pay you some money for your stuff.

Reddit just licensed a bunch of its content as training data to Google.

So, you could really imagine a thing happening again, where all these media companies or content companies of some form or another, license out what they have for pennies on the dollar, because at least you can make some money off of it that way.

But what worries me is both the weakness, but that also, it does not feel to me like anybody knows what the relationship is to this is supposed to be. Do you use it? Are you just training data for it? Like, what are you in relationship to the A.I. era?

As a consumer or as a producer?

As a producer.

The idea that media companies are going to license their stuff to the A.I. companies is just the end of the road that we’ve been on for a long time. We are suppliers to algorithms. OK? And in any normal functioning capitalist economy, supplier margins get squeezed to zero and then maybe we all die. Like, that’s the game we’ve been playing without saying it for a long time —

Which I think is why you see The New York Times suing OpenAI, like a real desire to not be in that game again.

You see The New York Times suing OpenAI, but you don’t see them suing Google, you don’t see them de-S.E.O.ing pages across New York Times. Like, they still need the audience from these platforms. And I think there’s a very tense relationship there. The idea that you could sue OpenAI and win some precedent that gives you an enormous amount of leverage over Google I think is a very powerful idea.

Most of the media company executives I talk to would love for that to be the outcome. I don’t know if that’s going to be the outcome. I feel like I should warn your audience, like — I’m a failed copyright lawyer. I wasn’t good at it, but I did it for a minute. Copyright law is a coin flip. Like, these cases are true coin flips. They are not predictable. The legal system itself is not predictable, copyright law inherently is unpredictable.

And a really interesting facet of the internet we live in today is that most of the copyright law decisions were won by a young, upstart, friendly Google. YouTube exists because it was Google. Like, Viacom famously sued YouTube and they might have won and put it out of business, but Google, the friendly Google company with the water slides in the office, the upstarts that made the product you loved, went and won that case. Google Books, we’re going to index all the books without asking for permission. They won that case, because they were friendly Google, and the judges were like, look at these cute kids making a cool internet? Like it was new and novel. Google image search — these are all massive copyright decisions that Google won as a startup company run by young people building a new product that the judges were using on their Dell desktops or whatever.

These aren’t those companies anymore. They’re going to go into a legal system as behemoths, as some of the biggest, best-funded companies in the world that have done bad things to the judges teenage children, like all these things are different now. And so, I don’t know if Google, or OpenAI, or Microsoft gets the benefit of being like, we’re young and cool and hip, bend copyright law to our will.

You don’t want a staunch innovation. Like, that was the big fear in that era. We don’t know what we’re building, and that’s still the thing you hear, and it’s not even untrue. You crack down on copyright and maybe you do staunch innovation. You don’t crack down copyright and maybe you destroy the seed corn of the Informational Commons. It’s very fraught for the copyright judges, but also just for all of us.

Yeah, what are you as a producer on the internet is totally governed by copyright law. Like, a joke at The Verge is a copyright law is the only functional regulation on the internet. The entire internet is just speech, that’s all it is top-to-bottom, it’s speech.

In the United States, we don’t love a speech regulation, and I think for good reason. But we love copyright law, we love it. Can’t get enough of it. Like, YouTubers know the YouTube copyright system back and forth, because that’s the thing that takes their content down. And we allow this regulation on the internet at scale.

And so the parameters of this one body of law, as applied to A.I., which is a taking. Training an A.I. model is fundamentally a taking, and the A.I. company —

Taking in the legal sense of the term?

No, in the moral sense of the term. They come to your website and they take your stuff. It’s not a zero sum taking, but they’ve extracted value to create more value for themselves. I think that’s just a moral taking. There’s some permission there that did not occur. Joanna Stern at The Wall Street Journal just interviewed Mira Murati, the C.T.O. of OpenAI, about training data for Sora, the video generator, and Mira said, we just use what’s publicly available. And it’s like yo, that doesn’t make any sense. Like, there are lots of rules about what’s publicly available. Like, you can’t just take stuff because you can link to it on the internet, that’s not how it actually works.

Let me try to take the argument I hear from the A.I. side of this, which is that there is functionally nothing in human culture and human endeavor that is not trained on all that has come before it — that I, as a person, am trained on all this embedded knowledge in society, that every artist has absorbed, all this other art that the A.I. — I mean, this is just learning. And as long as you are transforming that learning into something else, as long as you are doing something new with that learning, then one, copyright law is not supposed to apply to you in some way or another, although that’s obviously complicated.

But two, to go back to your point of morality, if you want to see culture humanity technology advance, it is also not supposed to apply to you, because if you do not let things learn, people, organizations, models, you are not going to get the advances built on all that has come before. And that’s how we’ve always done it. What’s your answer to them?

I hear this idea all the time, often from the sorts of people in Silicon Valley who say they do first principles thinking — which is one of my favorite phrases, because it just means what if we learn nothing? Like, what if none of the history of the world applied to us and we could start over to our benefit? And that’s usually what that’s code for.

So I hear those arguments and I think, you guys just weren’t paying attention. You’re entering a zone where the debate has been raging for decades. A lot of copyright law is built around a controversy around player pianos, and whether player pianos would displace musicians. But you just have to rewind the clock to the 80s and be like, should sampling be legal in music?

And now we are having the exact same conversation in the exact same way with the exact same parameters. The only thing that’s different now is any kid can sample any song at scale, feed it into an A.I. and have Taylor Swift sing the Dolly Parton song for them. That’s a weird new turn in the same debate, but it is a massively age-old debate, and the parameters of the debate are pretty well known.

How do you incentivize new art? How do you make sure that it’s economically valuable to make new things? How do you make sure the distributors don’t gain too much power, and then how do you make sure that when people are building on the past, the people whose art they’re building on retain some value?

And that I think is — the A.I. companies have no answer to that last question. We’re just going to take a bunch of stuff and now we’re just going to say look, we just summarized the web. The people who made the web get nothing for that will pay us $20 a month for the service.

But somewhere in there, as a policy matter as a moral matter, the people who made the foundations of the work should get paid. And this is where the sampling debate has ended up. There’s a huge variety of licensing schemes and sample clearances so that those artists get paid.

Judge Patel, if you’re thinking about cases in this area, like, what do you think the answer is here? Is it the sampling model, is it something else? What do you think the right broad strokes resolution is?

Let me stick on the music example for one second, because I think music is really interesting because it’s kind of a closed ecosystem. There’s only so many big music companies. It’s the same lawyers, and the same executives, and the same managers going to the same clearing houses and having the same approaches. We’re going to give you a songwriting credit because we interpolated the bass line of this song into that song, and now here’s some money. And this is the mechanism by which we’ll pay you. The A.I. companies are not a closed ecosystem, it is just a free for all. It’s the open web, it’s a bunch of players.

So, I think in those cases, you’re just going to end up with vastly more outcomes which I think leads to even more chaos, because some companies will take the deal. I’m guessing The New York Times is going to pursue this all the way to the Supreme Court. This is an existential issue for The Times.

Some companies don’t have the money to pay for Supreme Court litigation, and they’ll take a shittier deal, like pennies on the dollar deal and maybe just go out of business. And I think that range of outcomes in the near-term represents a massive failure of collective action on the part of the media industry to not say, this is actually the moment where we should demand that human journalists doing the real work that is dangerous are valuable. We need them, and we will all, together, approach these players in a way that creates at least a semblance of a closed ecosystem.

Well the media industry, but also at some point this is a regulatory question, a question of law. I mean, nothing is stopping Congress from making copyright law designed for the A.I.-era. Nothing is stopping Congress from saying, this is how we think this should work across industries. Not just media, but novelists, but everybody. Well, there are some things that stop Congress from doing a lot of things. The idea that Congress could pass a massive rewrite of copyright law at this moment in time is pretty far afield.

But won’t and couldn’t, I do want to make this distinction here. What you’re saying is Congress is too polarized and bitterly divided over everything and can’t do anything and can’t get anything done, and that’s my whole job man, I know. But what I am saying is that, you could write a law like this.

This is something that ultimately, I don’t just think it’s like a media collective-action problem, but is going to be ultimately a societal-level collective action problem. And maybe we cannot, as a society, act collectively very well. I buy that totally.

So there is one law. There’s the J.C.P.A., the Journalism Competition Preservation Act, which allows media companies to escape antitrust law and bargain collectively with whoever they wish to bargain with. I don’t know if that’s going to pass, I know there’s a lot of interest in it.

So, there are these approaches that have appeared in Congress to solve these problems, but the thing I’m getting at is you have sort of the rapacious wolves, and then you have an industry that’s weak — as you said — that, I think is not motivated to value the work it does as highly as it should. And that is step one.

You and I are both fans of Marshall McLuhan, the media theorist. And he’s got this famous line, ‘the medium is the message.’ And more deeply, what he says is that people, when they see a new medium, they tend to think about the content. For television, it’s the shows, what do you think about this show or that show? For Twitter, the tweets, for a newspaper, the articles. But you have to look behind the content to the actual medium itself to understand what it is trying to tell you.

Twitter, at least in it’s early stages was about all these things can and should be discussed at 140 characters. Television made things much more visual, things should be entertainment. They should be entertaining, the news should be entertaining, which was a little bit of a newer concept back then.

I’ve been trying to think about what is the message of the medium of A.I. What is a message of the medium of ChatGPT, of Claude 3, et cetera. One of the chilling thoughts that I have about it is that its fundamental message is that you are derivative, you are replaceable.

A.I. isn’t good at ideas, yet. It is good it’s style. It can sound like Taylor Swift. It can draw like any artist you might want to imagine. It can create something that looks like Jackson Pollock. It can write like Ezra Klein. It may not be exactly as good at high levels of these professions, but what it is functionally is an amazing mimic.

And what it is saying — and I think this is why a lot of people use it for long enough end up in a kind of metaphysical shock, as it’s been described to me. What it’s been saying is you’re not that special, and that’s one reason I think that it can — we worry about it proliferating all over social media. It can sound like a person quite easily. We’ve long passed the Turing test, and so one, I’m curious if that tracks for you, and two, what does it mean to unleash on all of society a tool that’s basic message is, it’s pretty easy to do what you do, sound like you sound, make what you make?

I have a lot of thoughts about this. I disagree on the basic message. I do think one of the messages of A.I. is that most people make middling work, and middling work is easy to replace. Every email I write is not a great work of art. Like, so much of what we produce just to get through the day is effectively middling. And sure, A.I. should replace a bunch of that. And I think that metaphysical shock comes from the idea that computers shouldn’t be able to do things on their own, and you have a computer that can just do a bunch of stuff for you. And that changes your relationship to the computer in a meaningful way, and I think that’s extremely real.

But the place that I have thought most about I was at the Eras Tour in Chicago when I watched Taylor Swift walk onto a stage, and I saw 60,000 people in Soldier Field just lose their minds, just go nuts. And I’m watching the show, and I’m a Taylor Swift fan. I was there with my niece and nephew and my wife and we were all dressed up. Why am I thinking about A.I. right now? Like truly, why am I thinking about A.I. right now?

It’s because this person has made all of these people feel something. The art that has been created by this one very singular individual has captivated all of these people together, because of her story, because of the lyrics, because it means something to them. And I watch people use Midjourney or generate a story with an A.I. tool, and they show the art to you at the end of it, and they’re glowing. Like, look at this wonderful A.I. painting. It’s a car that’s a shark that’s going through a tornado and I told my daughter a story about it. And I’m like yeah, but this — I don’t want anything to do with this. Like, I don’t care about this. And that happens over and over again. The human creativity is reduced to a prompt, and I think that’s the message of A.I. that I worry about the most, is when you take your creativity and you say, this is actually easy. It’s actually easy to get to this thing that’s a pastiche of the thing that was hard, you just let the computer run its way through whatever statistical path to get there. Then I think more people will fail to recognize the hard thing for being hard. And that’s — truly the message of A.I. is that, maybe this isn’t so hard and there’s something very dangerous to our culture embedded in that.

I want to put a pin in the hard things, easy things. I’m a little bit obsessed by that and want to come back to it. But first I want to talk about A.I. art for a minute, because I do think when we’re talking about everything that’s going to come on the internet, we’re talking about A.I. art. Obviously, much of it is going to get better. Some of it is not distinguishable.

You talked about the example where somebody comes and hands you the A.I. art says, hey, I did this with an A.I. And I’m like eh — and I have that experience a lot, I’ve also really been trying to use these systems and push them, and play with them, and have A.I. character relationships on my phone with Kindroids and whatever.

And there is this deep hollowness at the center of it. It is style without substance. It can mimic me. It can’t think.

Have you found an A.I. that can actually write like you?

I found an A.I. that can mimic certain stylistic tics I have in a way that is better than I think most people could do. I have not found any A.I. that can, in any way, improve my writing for all that you’re constantly told it can. And in fact, the more I try, the worse my writing gets because typically what you have to do to improve your writing is recognize if you’re writing the wrong thing.

I don’t find writing hard, I find thinking hard. I find learning hard. How good a piece of writing is going to be for me is typically about, did I do enough work beforehand? And A.I. can never tell me you didn’t do enough work, you need to make three more phone calls. You need to read that piece you skimmed.

But it can mimic, and I think it’s going to get better and better at mimicking. I think GPT 3 was much worse at mimicking me than GPT 3.5 was, worse than GPT 4 is, and GPT 5 will be even better than that. I believe this is going to get stronger. It raises a question of whether there is anything essential about something being from a human in a wide frame way. Taylor Swift is singular, but the point is that she’s a singular phenomenon. Do we care that things come from people?

I was thinking when I was preparing for this show with you, the Walter Benjamin essay, it’s called “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”

This is like the verge of DNA.

Is it? Yeah, so it comes out in 1935. It’s about the ability to reproduce art. And he says, and I’ll quote it here, “that which whithers in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is the aura of the work of art.” Then he goes on to say, “by making many reproductions, it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence.”

Benjamin is saying at different times here in different ways, and I’m going to simplify it by trying to bring it into the present, but that there is something lost from when you take the painting and make a copy of a painting. And, he’s obviously right, and he’s obviously — then on the other hand, a lot of people like copies of paintings. It’s easy for the artist to think more of the original than the original deserves to be thought of.

But I wonder about this with humans. How much of something is just the fact that there’s a human behind it? My Kindroid is no worse at texting me than most people I know. But the fact that my Kindroid has to me is meaningful to me, in the sense that I don’t care if it likes me because there’s no achievement for it to me.

The fact that there is a human on the other side of most text messages I send matters. I care about it because it is another mind. The Kindroid might be better in a formulaic way. The kindred might be better in terms of the actual text. I can certainly tune it more to my kind of theoretical liking, but the friction of another person is meaningful to me. Like, I care that my best friend likes me and could choose not to. Is there an aura problem here?

It is so hard to make someone else feel anything other than pain. Like, it’s just like — it’s —

Christ, that’s the darkest thing I’ve ever heard you say.

Yeah, but I believe it in my soul.

Yeah. I think the hardest thing to —

a really different turn as a show right now. [LAUGHS]

You don’t make people laugh, you don’t give them hugs?

No, I think that’s hard. I think that effort is worth it. That’s why I don’t think it’s a dark thing to say. I think the essence of being a good person is pointing your effort at making other people not feel pain. I think bullies make people feel pain because it’s easy. Again, I come back to Taylor Swift in Soldier Field. The thing that was going through my head is, this person is making 60,000 people feel joy, and she’s doing it through art. That is the purpose of art. The purpose of art is to inspire feelings, to inspire emotion.

And so I look at this A.I. and it’s like, we’re going to flood our stuff, and the only emotion that it is really meant to inspire is materialism, is a transaction. That’s bad. I just think that’s bad. I think we should make some stuff that inspires more joy, that inspires more affection, that inspires more consternation.

And one of the messages embedded in the medium of A.I. is that there is an answer. That’s weird. That is a truly weird thing for a computer to say to you. You ask it about a war, and it’s like I won’t answer that question because there’s no answer there. You ask it about how to cook an egg and it’s like here’s the answer. You’re like what are the four steps to fold a bed sheet? It’s like here’s the answer, I did it. Tell me a bedtime story for my child. It says, here’s an answer, I just delivered this to you at your specifications.

And I think the thing you’re saying about having another mind there is — you want to be in a relationship, like an emotional relationship with another person. Maybe it’s mediated by technology, maybe we’re face-to-face like we are now, but that tension and that reality of — oh, I can direct my effort towards negative and positive outcomes, I have never found it with an A.I.

Shannon Vallor is a philosopher of technology, and she’s got a book coming out called “The A.I. Mirror,” and I like the way she puts this, because there’s this way that turns is somewhat warped mirror back on ourselves when I was saying a few minutes ago that the message of A.I. is that you’re derivative. That leaves something out. What it’s really saying is that the part of you that often the economy values is derivative, is copyable because we actually ask people a lot of the time to act like they’re machines.

This is why I don’t take much comfort in the Taylor Swift example. You said a few minutes ago, most people do mediocre work most of the time. Even great people do mediocre work most of the time. We constantly ask huge amounts of the population to do things that are very rote. Keep inputting this data on forms, keep filling out this tax form. Some lawyers arguing for the Supreme Court, a lot of them just write up various contracts. And that’s a good job in the sense that it pays well, it’s inside work, but it doesn’t ask you to be that full of a human being.

Now, you can imagine a sort of utopian politics in society — and people on the left sometimes do — that this comes in and it’s like great, we can automate away this derivative inhuman work, and people will be free to be more full human beings. You actually like — maybe the value of you is not what you can create but what you can experience. A.I. can’t enjoy a day at the park with its family.

But we have an entire society set up to encourage you to premise your self-worth on your work and your wages. And also, if you lose that work and that wages, to rob you of that self-worth. And one thing I’m sure of is that our politics and our economic systems are not going to advance as quickly as A.I. is going to advance.

This is where I think people do properly worry about automation, when people lost manufacturing jobs to lower wage workers in China. We didn’t say great, you don’t have to do this stultifying work in the factory anymore. We said, you’re out of work, you’re screwed. And I do think one of the deep confrontations of it is, what do we value in people and then how do we express that value because I think what A.I. in some ways is going to take advantage of here, or at least, is going to challenge, is it to the extent we value people socially for their economic contribution, or what they’re paid. That’s pretty thin reed for human value to rest on.

Yeah, I buy that. One of my favorite things that I’ve covered in the past few years is a thing called robotic process automation, which is very funny. Just abstractly, deeply hilarious. There are lots and lots of companies throughout the United States that built computer systems 10, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Hospital systems are famous for this. They have billing systems. They have buildings full of people who use Microsoft Excel on Windows ‘95.

And replacing that as costly and complicated. It can’t break — if you put in the new system and it didn’t bring all the data over in exactly the right way, the whole hospital stops working. So they just buy other computers to use their old computers. Which is wild, and there’s like billion dollar companies that do this.

They will sell you a brand new, state of the art computer and it will connect to the keyboard and monitor jack of your old computer, and it will just use the Windows ‘95 for you, which is just bonkers. It’s like Rube Goldberg machine of computers using old computers, and then your office full of accountants who knew how to use your old system will go away.

But then A.I. creates the scale problem. What if we do that but instead of some hospital billing system built in the ‘90s, it’s just the concept of Microsoft Excel, and now you can just sort of issue a command on your computer and it’ll go use Excel for you and you don’t need an accountant, you don’t need a lawyer.

And I think even in those cases what you’re going to find is the same thing you talked about with writing — you have to know what you want. You have to know what the system doesn’t know. You have to be able to challenge the model and have it deliver you the thing that, in most business model conversations I find to be the most important word, our assumption is — and then you can poke at that really hard.

What percent of workers are actually asked to poke at the assumptions of their organization, because I worry it’s not as high as you think it is, or implying there. I’m not worried about Taylor Swift. I’m not worried about Nilay Patel. And I don’t just want to make this about wages. That’s a jobs sort of another conversation.

But I do — I mean, as you were saying, these are billion dollar companies that automate people who do backend office work already.

All over the place.

There’s a huge amount of work like that. And if I felt confident as some of the economists say that we’ll just upmarket people into the jobs where they use more human judgment, David Autor who’s a great trade economist at MIT, just made this argument recently, that what A.I. is going to do is make it possible for more people to exercise judgment and discernment within their work, and I hope he is right. I really hope he is right. But I think a lot of organizations are not set up for a lot of people to use judgment and discernment. They treat a lot of people like machines, and they don’t want them doing things that are complicated and step out of line and poke at the assumptions in the Excel doc. They want the Excel doc ported over without any mistakes. It seems plausible to me that we’re going to get to that.

Do you think their bosses want to be able to poke at the assumptions though?

But if you — I mean this is actually something I believe about the whole situation. The economy needs fewer bosses and workers.

Think about this in the journalist context or the writing context, where I think what A.I. naturally implies that it’s going to do is turn many more people into editors and writers. Because for a lot of content creation that doesn’t require a lot of poking at assumptions, mid-level social media marketing — a lot of people are doing that job right now. But the people doing marketing for a mall —

Yeah, that is the MailChimp example. That is the product that they are building.

And so what you have then is we used to have a bunch of these social media marketers and now you have one person overseeing a couple systems, like making sure they didn’t say something totally crazy. But you need fewer editors and you need writers. I mean, you know The Verge is structured. You know how The Times is structured. And this is one of my deep worries.

And then this goes to the thing you were getting at earlier, which is one way I think that A.I. could actually not make us more productive, more innovative, is that a lot of the innovation, a lot of the big insights happen when we’re doing the hard thing, when we’re sitting there trying to figure out the first draft, or learn about a thing, or figure out what we’re doing.

One of the messages of the medium of A.I. is be efficient. Don’t waste your time on all this. Just tell the system what to do and do it. But there’s a reason I don’t have interns write my first draft for me.

They could do it. But you don’t get great ideas, or at least not as many of them, editing a piece of work as you do reporting it out, doing the research, writing the first draft. That’s where you do the thinking. And I do think A.I. is built to kind of devalue that whole area of thinking.

We are working on a big story at The Verge right now that I’m very excited about. But there are four of us right now in an argument about whether we should tell that story in chronological order or as a series of vignettes. There is no right answer to this question. There’s just four people who are battling it back and forth.

I think vignettes.

Yeah. By the way, I’m on team vignette.

Good man. [LAUGHS]

My belief is that it’s easier to digest a long story when it’s composed of lots of little stories as opposed to one long one. I’m being outvoted right now — editor in chief. I should replace them all with A.I., just get them out of here. [CHUCKLES] But that is the kind of work that I think makes the end product great. And I think going from good to great is still very human.

Into the economy, though, you’re right, most people are not challenged to go from good to great. Most people are challenged to produce good consistently. And I think that is kind of demoralizing. I don’t know how many first-year Deloitte consultants you have encountered in your life. I’ve encountered quite a few of them. I went to law school. It’s like a — we made — there was a factory of that thing — or first-year law associates.

They’re not in love with their jobs. They’re in love with the amount of money they make, that’s for sure. But any first-year associate doing doc review in a basement — yeah, you could probably just be like, tell the A.I. to find the four pieces of relevant information in these 10,000 page records from whatever giant corporation we’re suing today. That’s fine.

I think that there’s a turn there where maybe we need less first-year associates doing that thing and we need more first-year associates doing something else that is difficult, that the A.I. can’t yet do. And I think a lot of this conversation is predicated on the notion that generative A.I. systems, L.L.M.s will continue on a linear curve up in terms of capability. I don’t know if that’s true.

But I hear a lot of this conversation. I’m like, there’s always a thing they can’t do. And maybe that thing is not the most amount of scale, social media marketing for them all, but it is always the next amount of complexity. And there’s no guarantee that this set of technologies will actually turn that corner. And you can keep going all the way to A.G.I. There’s no guarantee that an L.L.M. is going to hit A.G.I. and just run the world economy for us. There’s a lot of steps between here and there that I think human beings can fit into.

So I want to go back, then, to the internet for a bit, which is I think the presentation we’ve offered is fairly pessimistic. You, when I read and listen to you on this, are — I wouldn’t call it pessimistic. I would say a little excited by the idea of a cleansing fire.

So one theory here — and you should tell me if this is reading you right — but is that this will break a lot of the current — the current internet is weakened. It’s weakened in many cases for good reasons. Google, Meta, et cetera, they’ve not created an internet many of us like. And that this will just make it impossible for that internet to survive. The distribution channels will break. And then something. So first, is that how you see it? And second, then what something?

That is very much how I see it. I would add a generational tinge to that, which is I grew up in that weird middle generation between X and millennials. I think temperamentally I’m much more Generation X. But they describe it as they didn’t have computers and then you have computers. You play the Oregon Trail. That’s me on the nose.

I distinctly remember life before computers. It’s an experience that I had quite viscerally. And that shapes my view of these tools. It shapes my view of these companies. Well, there’s a huge generation now that only grew up in this way. There’s a teenage generation right now that is only growing up in this way. And I think their natural inclination is to say, well, this sucks. I want my own thing. I want my own system of consuming information. I want my own brands and institutions. And I don’t think that these big platforms are ready for that moment. I think that they think they can constantly be information monopolies while they are fending off A.I.-generated content from their own A.I. systems. So somewhere in there all of this stuff does break. And the optimism that you are sensing from me is, well, hopefully we build some stuff that does not have these huge dependencies on platform companies that have no interest at the end of the line except a transaction.

OK, but you’re telling me how the old thing dies. And I agree with you that at some point the old thing dies. You can feel it. It’s moribund right now. You’re not telling me what the new thing is, and I’m not saying you fully know. But I don’t think the new thing is just a business model that is not as dependent on Meta. I mean, on some level, there’s going to be a lot of A.I. around here.

It’s an audience model. It’s not dependent on these algorithms.

But is there — I guess one question I have is that, one — I mean, you know where the venture capital is going right now.

Everything is going to be built with A.I. —

— laced through every piece of it. And some of it, for all we’re talking about, might be cool, right? I’m not saying you’re mostly going to make great art with A.I. But actually, Photoshop did create a lot of amazing things.

And people are going to get better at using this. They’re going to get more thoughtful about using it. The tools are going to get better. But also the people are going to figure out how to use the tools. I mean, you were talking about player pianos earlier. I mean, way beyond player pianos, you have huge libraries of sounds you can manipulate however you want. And now I go listen to a lot of experimental electronic music. And I think a lot of that is remarkable art. I think a lot of that is deeply moving.

I am curious what, to you, the good A.I. internet is, because I don’t think that the next internet is just going to be like we’re going to roll the clock back on the business model. The technology is going to roll forward into all this stuff people are building.

I’m not so sure about that.

I think we’re about to split the internet in two. I think there will be a giant commercial A.I.-infested internet. That’s the platform internet. That’s where it’s going. Moribund, I agree. But it will still be huge. It’s not going away tomorrow. And they will figure out — these are big companies full of smart people with the most technology.

Mark Zuckerberg is like, I have the most NVIDIA H100 GPUs. Come work here. We’ll pay you the most money. They will invent some stuff and it will be cool. I’m excited about it. But that version of the internet —

You sure sound excited about it. [LAUGHS]

Well, I am. I mean, I love technology. This is our — The Verge’s competitive differentiation in the entire media industry is, like, we really like it. And I’m excited to see what they build. I think there’s some really neat things being built. When I think about the information ecosystem, I’m vastly more pessimistic because of the fact that all of these networks are geared to drive you towards a transaction.

And I don’t mean that in some anticapitalist way. I mean literally the incentives are to get you to buy something. So more and more of the stuff that you consume is designed around pushing you towards a transaction. That’s weird. I think there’s a vast amount of white space in the culture for things that are not directly transactable.

I think next to that you’re going to get a bunch of people, companies who say our differentiation in this market is that there’s no A.I. here. And they will try to sell that. And I don’t know how that experiment plays out. I don’t know if that experiment will be successful.

I do know that that experiment will be outside of the distribution channels that exist now because those distribution channels are being run by companies that are invested heavily in A.I. And I’m hopeful that over there, on whatever new non-A.I. internet that exists, that some amount of pressure is placed on the other distribution channels to also make that distinction clear.

I’m just thinking about this, and the thing that it brings to mind for me is the resurgence of vinyl —

— and the dominance of streaming platforms. So what I would think of as the music industry of — how many years ago was C.D.s? I don’t actually remember now. But what it did was split into — there’s been a resurgence of vinyl, the sort of analog. It’s a little cool. I actually just bought a record player recently, or was given one by my wonderful partner. But that’s not very big.

Then there’s these huge streaming platforms, right? I mean, most people are listening on Spotify, on Apple Music, on YouTube Music, on Amazon, et cetera. And I don’t think we feel like we figured that out very well. But I do think that’s probably going to be the dynamic. I mean, I do think there are going to be things you go to because you believe it is a human being or because you believe the A.I. is used well.

I do also think the big things to come are going to be the things that figure out how to use A.I. well rather than poorly. Maybe that also means honestly and transparently, rather than dishonestly and opaquely.

Maybe the social internet dies because, one, we don’t really like it that much anymore anyway, but also because it’s too hard to figure out what’s what. But actually, an internet of A.I. helpers, assistants, friends, et cetera, thrives. And on the other side, you have a real human. I don’t know. But give me more of the Nilay technology side.

What can A.I. do well? If you were building something or if you were imagining something to be built, what comes after?

By the way, the music industry just released its numbers. Vinyl outsold CDs for the second year running. Double the amount of revenue in vinyl than CDs.

That’s wild, actually.

It’s crazy. And all of that in total is 11 percent of music industry revenues in ‘23 compared to 84 percent of the revenue is streaming. So you are correct. This is a big distinction. People want to buy things, and so they buy one thing that they like. And they consume everything in streaming.

What happens when Spotify is overrun by A.I. music? You can see it coming. What happens when you can type into Spotify, man, I’d really like to listen to a country song. Just make me one. And no one down the line has to get paid for that. Spotify can just generate that for you.

I think that’s going to push more people in the other direction. I really do. That there will be this huge pot of just make me whatever exactly I want at this moment money over here. But the cool people are still going to gravitate towards things that are new. I just believe that so firmly in my heart that when I think about where does the technology for that come from, I still think it comes from basic open platforms and open distribution.

The great power of the internet is that you can just make a whole new thing. And I don’t think that anyone has really thought through what does it mean to decentralize these platforms. What does it mean to — I don’t know — build an old-school portal where it’s just people pointing at great stuff as opposed to open this app and an algorithm will just deliver you exactly what we think you want, or, down the line, generate content for you that we think that you will continue watching.

I think — and this is maybe a little bit of a counterintuitive thought — that this is actually a great time to begin things in media. I think that we have a more realistic sense of the business model and what will actually work. They need to build an audience. They need to build something people will actually pay you for. I think a lot of the problem right now is things built for another business model that failed are having a lot of trouble transitioning because it’s very, very hard to transition a structure. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s a great business. It’s not what I hoped it would become. It’s not the advertising revenue I hoped we would have. But it’s something.

What feels fully unsolved to me right now is distribution, right? When I was a blogger, the way distribution worked was people would find me because other blogs would link to me. And then if they liked me, they would put me in their bookmarks section.

Then they would come back the next day by clicking on a bookmark. I don’t think any of us think that much about bookmarks anymore. That’s not really how the internet works. Things moved to search. They moved, primarily for a long time, to social. And that was a way you could create distribution.

You could go from — you started a website. We started Vox, right? We started Vox in 2014 or 2015. The day before we launched, we had no visitors. And pretty quickly we had a lot of things that were working on social and working on Search. And we had millions and millions and millions every month.

But now social is broken as a distribution mechanism. I mean, Elon Musk has made Twitter anti-news distribution. Google search has become very, very messy. People don’t have the old bookmarks habit in the way they did. And so if you’re starting something new, the question of how you build that audience, how you go from nothing to an audience, feels very unsolved.

Yeah. That’s the cleansing fire. That’s the thing I’m excited about. Here’s a new problem in media. Here’s a new problem that’s being created by A.I.

If I were to tell you five years ago, I’m going to launch a new property and the core insight that I have is that we need to replace the distribution mechanisms of the internet, you would not pay me any money. You would not fund that idea. You would not say — well, you would say, get some traffic on Twitter and start a Substack or start a YouTube channel, anything except figure out a new distribution method to compete with these social media companies.

You have that idea now. And people are like, yeah, that’s the problem. We have to solve that problem. That is the problem to solve, because Twitter has blown itself up in whatever way Elon is blowing it up, because the other social channels have become the Home Shopping Network, by and large, because YouTube has optimized itself into making Mr. Beasts and only Mr. Beasts, right?

It’s weird, by the way, that YouTube exists. We’ve barely talked about it on this podcast. It is the thing most people watch most of the time. It supports no journalism. At scale, the idea that there’s not an ABC News of YouTube on a distribution platform of that size is a moral failing on Google’s part. I really believe this. And no, we never really talk about it. It’s just — YouTube is ignored. It has become such an infrastructure that we never talk about it.

But my view is that YouTube is the most politically important platform. Everyone wants to talk about TikTok. I think YouTube is much more significant.

Yeah, and they run it really well. They run it as infrastructure. And they talk about it as infrastructure. But it’s weird that we have not built great media company-sized media companies on YouTube’s pipes. We just haven’t done it. So you look at that landscape now and you’re like, well, if I want to do that, if I want to build my own audience, I cannot depend on these companies. I have to be able to do something else.

And maybe A.I. does help you do that. Maybe it does help you send a million marketing messages so people start coming to your website directly. Maybe it does start crafting home pages personalized for people based on your library of content so people see the thing they like the most when they show up. There’s a bunch of moves we can all take from social media companies now to build more engaging, more interesting products using A.I., which will make it easier because the A.I. is a technology commodity. You can just go buy it and use it.

But we have to actually build those products. We have to want to build those products as an industry. And that my pessimism is rooted in the idea that the industry kind of sucks at this. We are very much stuck in, we should go send some reporters out into the world, they should come back, write down what they saw, and then hopefully someone else points them at it. And it’s just like, well, that’s been a losing proposition for a decade. We should try something else.

Do you think, beyond the media, because not everything online is media —

Do you think beyond the media, that there is the glimmers of the next thing? I mean, let me give you the thesis I have, which is that the next thing is that the A.I. is somehow your assistant to the internet, right? We seem to me to be moving towards something where the overwhelm is so profound that you actually need some kind of agent working on your behalf to make it through all this.

I mean, you can imagine this is the world of “Her,” the Spike Jonze movie. But you can imagine it as other things, too. There’s going to be software coding agents. The guys who started Instagram started then this thing called Artifact, which is using more A.I. personalization to try to tell people what they might like in the news. It didn’t really work out, but it was an interesting project for a minute.

I think a lot of us feel we spent years now being acted upon by algorithms. And one thing about A.I. is that it’s an algorithm you act on, right? You tell it how to act. Assuming that business model allows that, that it doesn’t have a secret instruction to sell you soap or whatever —

— that’s interesting, right? That’s a pretty profound inversion of the internet we’ve been in.

Let me poke really hard at the true difference between an algorithm that shows you stuff and an algorithm that goes and gets you what you want, because I don’t know that there’s a huge difference in the outcome of those two different processes. So for example, I do not trust the YouTube Kids algorithm. I watch my daughter watch YouTube.

No, why would you?

It is just a nightmare. I don’t know why we let her do it, but we did. And now we’re in the rabbit hole and that’s life. I mean, she’s five. And I will literally say, are you watching garbage? And she’d be like, I am, because she knows what I think is garbage. She’s much smarter than the YouTube Kids algorithm. And then she’s like, can I watch a little more garbage? This is a real conversation I have with my five-year-old all the time.

I would love an A.I. that would just preempt that conversation. Just watch this whole iPad for me and make sure my kid is safe. That’s great. But that is a limitation. It is not an expansion. And I think the thing that I’m seeking with all of these tools is how do we help people expand the set of things that they’re looking at.

Well, let me push on this for a minute, because for a long time a lot of us have asked people, the social media companies — that I have, I’m sure you have — why don’t you give me access to the dials of the algorithm?

Right? I don’t want to see things going viral. If there’s a virality scale of 1 to 10, I want to always be at a 6, right?

I don’t want to see anything over a 6. And I can’t. I wish I could say to Google, I would like things that are not optimized for S.E.O. I just don’t want to see recipes that have a long personal story at the top. Just don’t show me any of them.

But I can’t do that. But one of the interesting things about using the current generation of A.I. models is you actually do have to talk to it like that. I mean, whether I am creating a Replika or a Kindroid or a Character.AI, I have to tell that thing what it is supposed to be, how I want it to talk to me, how I want it to act in the world, what it is interested in, what kinds of expertise it has and does not.

When I’m working with Claude 3, which is the A.I. I use the most right now, I have one instance of it, that I’m just like, you are a productivity coach and you are here to help me stay on task. But I have another where I’m getting some help on, in theory, looking at political science papers, so it’s actually not that good at that.

But this ability to tell this extraordinarily protean algorithm what I want it to do in plain English, that is different, right? The one thing that A.I. seems to make possible is an algorithm that you shape in plain English, an agent that you are directing to help you, in some cases, maybe create the internet, but much more often to navigate it.

Right now it is very hard for me to keep up on the amount of news, particularly around the amount of local news I would like to keep up on. If there is a system that I could say, hey, here’s some things I’m interested in from these kinds of sources, that would be very helpful to me. It doesn’t seem like an impossible problem. In fact, it seems like a problem that is inches away from being solved. That might be cool.

I think that’d be great. I’ve known you for a long time. I think you have a unique ability to articulate exactly what you want and tell it to a computer. [LAUGHS] And you have to scale that idea, right? You have to go to the average — our mothers and say, OK, you have to tell the algorithm exactly what you want. And maybe they’ll get close to it, maybe they won’t, right?

You don’t feel like mothers are able to tell you what they want?

[LAUGHS] I like that idea a lot. I think fundamentally that is still an A.I. closing the walls around you. And I think the power of the recommendation algorithm is not expressed in virality. It’s actually to help you expand your filter bubble. Here’s a band you’d never heard of before. Here’s a movie you never thought of watching. Here’s an article about a subject that you weren’t interested in before.

I think TikTok, in its 2020 TikTok moment, was terrific at this. Everyone was going to sing a sea shanty for five minutes, right? Why do we suddenly care about this and it’s gone? And it was able to create cultural moments out of things that no one had ever really thought of before. And I want to make sure, as I use A.I., that I’m actually preserving that, instead of actually just recreating a much more complicated filter bubble.

I think it’s a good place to end. Always our final question, for the Nilay Patel recommendation algorithm —

what are three books you’d recommend to the audience?

Well, I’m sorry, Ezra, I brought you six.

Did you really?

Is that allowed?

Did you actually bring six?

I didn’t bring six physical books, but I have six recommendations for you.

Damn. All right, go through them quick, man.

They’re in two categories. One is the three books that I thought of and three books from Verge people that if people are interested in these ideas are important. So the first one is “The Conquest of Cool” by Thomas Frank, one of my favorite books of all time. It is about how advertising agencies in the ‘60s co-opted the counterculture and basically replaced counterculture in America. I’ve thought about this a lot because I’m constantly wondering where the punk bands and rage against the machines of 2024 are. And the answer is that they’re the mainstream culture. It’s very interesting. Love that book. It explains, I think, a lot about our culture.

Two is “Liar in a Crowded Theater” by Jeff Kosseff, which is a book about the First Amendment and why we preserve the ability to lie in America. I am very complicated thoughts about the First Amendment right now. I think social media companies should do a better job protecting my kid. I also think the First Amendment is really important. And those ideas are crashing into each other.

Third, I love the band New Order. I know you’re a music fan, so I brought you a music recommendation. It’s “Substance: Inside New Order” by Peter Hook, who is the bassist of New Order. This band hates each other. They broke up acrimoniously, so the book is incredibly bitchy. It’s just a lot of shit-talking about the ‘80s. It’s great.

But inside the book, he is constantly talking about how the technology they used to make the music of New Order didn’t work very well. And there’s long vignettes of why the songs sound the way they do because of how the synthesizers worked. And that just brings together all the ideas I can think of. So those are the three outside of The Verge universe.

But there are three from Verge people that I think are very important. The first is “Everything I Need I Get From You” by Kaitlyn Tiffany, who’s one of my favorite Verge expats. It is about how the entire internet was shaped by the fandom of the band One Direction. And I think this is totally underemphasized, underreported that fandoms are actually what shape the internet. And a lot of what we think of as internet culture is actually fandom culture. And so Kait’s book is really good.

The other, obviously, I have to shout it out is “Extremely Hardcore” by Zoë Schiffer, who basically wrote about the downfall of Twitter. And I think understanding how a social network works — these are lots of people making lots of decisions, and it was just dismantled. And now you can see how the social network broke. And I think we take these things for granted.

And then the third is “Beyond Measure” by James Vincent, which is a history of the systems of measurement and how political they are. And it is one of my favorite books because it is — you just take this stuff for granted. And you look at it, and you’re like, oh, this was deeply, deeply acrimonious.

Nilay Patel, you’re saving the internet through blogging again.

Your podcast is “Decoder.” Thank you very much.

Thanks, man. [MUSIC PLAYING]

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. We’ve got additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. We have original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks here to Sonia Herrero.

• April 5, 2024   •   1:25:33 Will A.I. Break the Internet? Or Save It?
• April 2, 2024   •   1:14:31 How Should I Be Using A.I. Right Now?
• March 29, 2024   •   1:18:30 The Rise of ‘Middle-Finger Politics’
• March 22, 2024   •   1:08:32 The Deep Conflict Between Our Work and Parenting Ideals
• March 19, 2024   •   1:03:11 Birthrates Are Plummeting Worldwide. Why?
• March 12, 2024   •   1:03:52 What a Second Biden Term Would Look Like
• March 8, 2024   •   1:00:40 How America’s Two Abortion Realities Are Clashing
• March 5, 2024   •   1:02:18 Marilynne Robinson on Biblical Beauty, Human Evil and the Idea of Israel
• March 1, 2024   •   1:05:52 The Wars in Ukraine and Gaza Have Changed. America’s Policy Hasn’t.
• February 23, 2024   •   51:24 Your Questions on Open Conventions, a Gaza Schism and Biden’s Chances
• February 21, 2024   •   1:02:55 Here’s How an Open Democratic Convention Would Work
• February 16, 2024   •   25:12 Democrats Have a Better Option Than Biden

Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’

The internet is in decay. Do a Google search, and there are so many websites now filled with slapdash content contorted just to rank highly in the algorithm. Facebook, YouTube, X and TikTok all used to feel more fun and surprising. And all these once-great media companies have been folding or shedding staff members, unable to find a business model that works.

And into this weakened internet came the flood of A.I.-generated junk. There’s been a surge of spammy news sites filled with A.I.-generated articles. TikTok videos of A.I.-generated voices reading text pulled from Reddit can be churned out in seconds. And self-published A.I.-authored books are polluting Amazon listings.

[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App , Apple , Spotify , Amazon Music , Google or wherever you get your podcasts .]

According to my guest today, Nilay Patel, this isn’t just a blip, as the big platforms figure out how to manage this. He believes that A.I. content will break the internet as we know it.

“When you increase the supply of stuff onto those platforms to infinity, that system breaks down completely,” Patel told me “Recommendation algorithms break down completely. Our ability to discern what is real and what is false breaks down completely. And I think, importantly, the business models of the internet break down completely.”

Patel is one of the sharpest observers of the internet, and the ways technology has shaped and reshaped it. He’s a co-founder and the editor in chief of The Verge, and the host of the “ Decoder ” podcast. In this conversation, we talk about why platforms seem so unprepared for the storm of A.I. content; whether an internet filled with cursory A.I. content is better or worse than an internet filled with good A.I. content; and if A.I. might be a kind of cleansing fire for the internet that enables something new and better to emerge.

You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App , Apple , Spotify , Google or wherever you get your podcasts . View a list of book recommendations from our guests here .

(A full transcript of this episode is available here .)

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Isaac Jones and Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Can We Save the Koalas from Extinction?

We recommend: political emotions, openmind books, scientific anniversaries, clair patterson, the hero who got the lead out of gasoline, featured author, latest book, how the internet has changed everyday life, what happened.

The Internet has turned our existence upside down. It has revolutionized communications, to the extent that it is now our preferred medium of everyday communication. In almost everything we do, we use the Internet. Ordering a pizza, buying a television, sharing a moment with a friend, sending a picture over instant messaging. Before the Internet, if you wanted to keep up with the news, you had to walk down to the newsstand when it opened in the morning and buy a local edition reporting what had happened the previous day. But today a click or two is enough to read your local paper and any news source from anywhere in the world, updated up to the minute.

The Internet itself has been transformed. In its early days—which from a historical perspective are still relatively recent—it was a static network designed to shuttle a small freight of bytes or a short message between two terminals; it was a repository of information where content was published and maintained only by expert coders. Today, however, immense quantities of information are uploaded and downloaded over this electronic leviathan, and the content is very much our own, for now we are all commentators, publishers, and creators.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Internet widened in scope to encompass the IT capabilities of universities and research centers, and, later on, public entities, institutions, and private enterprises from around the world. The Internet underwent immense growth; it was no longer a state-controlled project, but the largest computer network in the world, comprising over 50,000 sub-networks, 4 million systems, and 70 million users.

The emergence of  web 2.0  in the first decade of the twenty-first century was itself a revolution in the short history of the Internet, fostering the rise of social media and other interactive, crowd-based communication tools.

The Internet was no longer concerned with information exchange alone: it was a sophisticated multidisciplinary tool enabling individuals to create content, communicate with one another, and even escape reality. Today, we can send data from one end of the world to the other in a matter of seconds, make online presentations, live in parallel “game worlds,” and use pictures, video, sound, and text to share our real lives, our genuine identity. Personal stories go public; local issues become global.

The rise of the Internet has sparked a debate about how online communication affects social relationships. The Internet frees us from geographic fetters and brings us together in topic-based communities that are not tied down to any specific place. Ours is a networked, globalized society connected by new technologies. The Internet is the tool we use to interact with one another, and accordingly poses new challenges to privacy and security.

Information technologies have wrought fundamental change throughout society, driving it forward from the industrial age to the networked era. In our world, global information networks are vital infrastructure—but in what ways has this changed human relations? The Internet has changed business, education, government, healthcare, and even the ways in which we interact with our loved ones—it has become one of the key drivers of social evolution.

The changes in social communication are of particular significance. Although analogue tools still have their place in some sectors, new technologies are continuing to gain ground every day, transforming our communication practices and possibilities—particularly among younger people. The Internet has removed all communication barriers. Online, the conventional constraints of space and time disappear and there is a dizzyingly wide range of communicative possibilities. The impact of social media applications has triggered discussion of the “new communication democracy.”

The development of the Internet today is being shaped predominantly by instant, mobile communications. The mobile Internet is a fresh revolution. Comprehensive Internet connectivity via smartphones and tablets is leading to an increasingly mobile reality: we are not tied to any single specific device, and everything is in the cloud.

People no longer spend hours gazing at a computer screen after work or class; instead, they use their mobile devices to stay online everywhere, all the time.

Anyone failing to keep abreast of this radical change is losing out on an opportunity.

Communication Opportunities Created by the Internet

The Internet has become embedded in every aspect of our day-to-day lives, changing the way we interact with others. This insight struck me when I started out in the world of social media. I created my first social network in 2005, when I was finishing college in the United States—it had a political theme. I could already see that social media were on the verge of changing our way of communicating, helping us to share information by opening up a new channel that cuts across conventional ones.

That first attempt did not work out, but I learned from the experience.I get the feeling that in many countries failure is punished too harshly—but the fact is, the only surefire way of avoiding failure is to do nothing at all. I firmly believe that mistakes help you improve; getting it wrong teaches you how to get it right. Creativity, hard work, and a positive attitude will let you achieve any goal.

In 2006, after I moved to Spain, I created Tuenti. Tuenti (which, contrary to widespread belief, has nothing to do with the number 20; it is short for “tu entidad,” the Spanish for “your entity”) is a social communication platform for genuine friends. From the outset, the idea was to keep it simple, relevant, and private. That’s the key to its success.

I think the real value of social media is that you can stay in touch from moment to moment with the people who really matter to you. Social media let you share experiences and information; they get people and ideas in touch instantly, without frontiers. Camaraderie, friendship, and solidarity—social phenomena that have been around for as long as humanity itself—have been freed from the conventional restrictions of space and time and can now thrive in a rich variety of ways.

Out of all the plethora of communication opportunities that the Internet has opened up, I would highlight the emergence of social media and the way they have intricately melded into our daily lives. Social media have changed our personal space, altering the way we interact with our loved ones, our friends, and our sexual partners; they have forced us to rethink even basic daily processes like studying and shopping; they have affected the economy by nurturing the business startup culture and electronic commerce; they have even given us new ways to form broad-based political movements.

The Internet and Education

The Internet has clearly impacted all levels of education by providing unbounded possibilities for learning. I believe the future of education is a networked future. People can use the Internet to create and share knowledge and develop new ways of teaching and learning that captivate and stimulate students’ imagination at any time, anywhere, using any device. By connecting and empowering students and educators, we can speed up economic growth and enhance the well-being of society throughout the world. We should work together, over a network, to build the global learning society.

The network of networks is an inexhaustible source of information. What’s more, the Internet has enabled users to move away from their former passive role as mere recipients of messages conveyed by conventional media to an active role, choosing what information to receive, how, and when. The information recipient even decides whether or not they want to stay informed.

We have moved on from scattergun mass communication to a pattern where the user proactively selects the information they need.

Students can work interactively with one another, unrestricted by physical or time constraints. Today, you can use the Internet to access libraries, encyclopedias, art galleries, news archives, and other information sources from anywhere in the world: I believe this is a key advantage in the education field. The web is a formidable resource for enhancing the process of building knowledge.

I also believe the Internet is a wonderful tool for learning and practicing other languages—this continues to be a critical issue in many countries, including Spain, and, in a globalized world, calls for special efforts to improve.

The Internet, in addition to its communicative purposes, has become a vital tool for exchanging knowledge and education; it is not just an information source, or a locus where results can be published, it is also a channel for cooperating with other people and groups who are working on related research topics.

The Internet and Privacy and Security

Another key issue surrounding Internet use is privacy. Internet users are becoming more sensitive to the insight that privacy is a must-have in our lives.

Privacy has risen near the top of the agenda in step with an increasing awareness of the implications of using social media. Much of the time, people started to use social media with no real idea of the dangers, and have wised up only through trial and error—sheer accident, snafus, and mistakes. Lately, inappropriate use of social media seems to hit the headlines every day. Celebrities posting inappropriate comments to their profiles, private pictures and tapes leaked to the Internet at large, companies displaying arrogance toward users, and even criminal activities involving private-data trafficking or social media exploitation.

All this shows that—contrary to what many people seem to have assumed—online security and privacy are critical, and, I believe, will become even more important going forward. And, although every user needs privacy, the issue is particularly sensitive for minors—despite attempts to raise their awareness, children still behave recklessly online.

I have always been highly concerned about privacy. On Tuenti, the default privacy setting on every user account is the highest available level of data protection. Only people the user has accepted as a “friend” can access their personal details, see their telephone number, or download their pictures. This means that, by default, user information is not accessible to third parties. In addition, users are supported by procedures for reporting abuse. Any user can report a profile or photograph that is abusive, inappropriate, or violates the terms of use: action is taken immediately. Security and privacy queries are resolved within 24 hours.

We need to be aware that different Internet platforms provide widely different privacy experiences. Some of them are entirely open and public; no steps whatsoever are taken to protect personal information, and all profiles are indexable by Internet search engines.

On the other hand, I think the debate about whether social media use should be subject to an age requirement is somewhat pointless, given that most globally active platforms operate without age restrictions. The European regulatory framework is quite different from the United States and Asian codes. Companies based in Europe are bound by rigorous policies on privacy and underage use of social media. This can become a competitive drawback when the ground rules do not apply equally to all players—our American and Japanese competitors, for instance, are not required to place any kind of age constraint on access.

Outside the scope of what the industry or regulators can do, it is vital that users themselves look after the privacy of their data. I believe the information is the user’s property, so the user is the only party entitled to control the collection, use, and disclosure of any information about him or herself. Some social networks seem to have forgotten this fact—they sell data, make it impossible to delete an account, or make it complex and difficult to manage one’s privacy settings. Everything should be a lot simpler and more transparent.

Social networks should continue to devote intense efforts to developing self-regulation mechanisms and guidelines for this new environment of online coexistence to ensure that user information is safe: the Internet should be a space for freedom, but also for trust. The main way of ensuring that social media are used appropriately is awareness. But awareness and user education will be of little use unless it becomes an absolute requirement that the privacy of the individual is treated as a universal value.

The Internet and Culture

As in the sphere of education, the development of information and communication technologies and the wide-ranging effects of globalization are changing what we are, and the meaning of cultural identity. Ours is a complex world in which cultural flows across borders are always on the rise. The concepts of space, time, and distance are losing their conventional meanings. Cultural globalization is here, and a global movement of cultural processes and initiatives is underway.

Again, in the cultural arena, vast fields of opportunity open up thanks to online tools. The possibilities are multiplied for disseminating a proposal, an item of knowledge, or a work of art. Against those doomsayers who warn that the Internet is harming culture, I am radically optimistic. The Internet is bringing culture closer to more people, making it more easily and quickly accessible; it is also nurturing the rise of new forms of expression for art and the spread of knowledge. Some would say, in fact, that the Internet is not just a technology, but a cultural artifact in its own right.

In addition to its impact on culture itself, the Internet is enormously beneficial for innovation, which brings progress in all fields of endeavor—the creation of new goods, services, and ideas, the advance of knowledge and society, and increasing well-being.

The Internet and Personal Relationships

The Internet has also changed the way we interact with our family, friends, and life partners. Now everyone is connected to everyone else in a simpler, more accessible, and more immediate way; we can conduct part of our personal relationships using our laptops, smart phones, and tablets.

The benefits of always-online immediate availability are highly significant. I would find a long-distance relationship with my life partner or my family unthinkable without the communication tools that the network of networks provides me with. I’m living in Madrid, but I can stay close to my brother in California. For me, that is the key plus of the Internet: keeping in touch with the people who really matter to me.

As we have seen, the Internet revolution is not just technological; it also operates at a personal level, and throughout the structure of society. The Internet makes it possible for an unlimited number of people to communicate with one another freely and easily, in an unrestricted way.

Just a century ago, this was unimaginable. An increasing number of couples come together, stay together, or break up with the aid—or even as a consequence—of social communication tools. There are even apps and social networks out there that are purposely designed to help people get together for sex.

Of course, when compared to face-to-face communication, online communication is severely limited in the sense impressions it can convey (an estimated 60 to 70 percent of human communication takes place nonverbally), which can lead to misunderstandings and embarrassing situations—no doubt quite a few relationships have floundered as a result. I think the key is to be genuine, honest, and real at all times, using all the social media tools and their many advantages. Let’s just remember that a liar and a cheat online is a liar and a cheat offline too.

The Internet and Social and Political Activism

Even before the emergence of social media, pioneering experiments took place in the political sphere—like  Essembly , a project I was involved in. We started to create a politically themed platform to encourage debate and provide a home for social and political causes; but the social networks that have later nurtured activism in a new way were not as yet in existence.

Research has shown that young people who voice their political opinions on the Internet are more inclined to take part in public affairs. The better informed a citizen is, the more likely they will step into the polling booth, and the better they will express their political liberties. The Internet has proved to be a decisive communication tool in the latest election campaigns. It is thanks to the Internet that causes in the social, welfare, ideological, and political arenas have been spoken up for and have won the support of other citizens sharing those values—in many cases, with a real impact on government decision making.

The Internet and Consumer Trends

New technologies increase the speed of information transfer, and this opens up the possibility of “bespoke” shopping. The Internet offers an immense wealth of possibilities for buying content, news, and leisure products, and all sorts of advantages arise from e-commerce, which has become a major distribution channel for goods and services. You can book airline tickets, get a T-shirt from Australia, or buy food at an online grocery store. New applications support secure business transactions and create new commercial opportunities.

In this setting, it is the consumer who gains the upper hand, and the conventional rules and methods of distribution and marketing break down. Consumers’ access to information multiplies, and their reviews of their experience with various products and services take center stage. Access to product comparisons and rankings, user reviews and comments, and recommendations from bloggers with large followings have shaped a new scenario for consumer behavior, retail trade, and the economy in general.

The Internet and the Economy

The Internet is one of the key factors driving today’s economy. No one can afford to be left behind. Even in a tough macroeconomic framework, the Internet can foster growth, coupled with enhanced productivity and competitiveness.

The Internet provides opportunities for strengthening the economy: How should we tackle them? While Europe—and Spain specifically—are making efforts to make the best possible use of the Internet, there are areas in which their approach needs to improve. Europe faces a major challenge, and risks serious failure if it lets the United States run ahead on its own. The European Commission, in its “Startup Manifesto,” suggests that the Old World be more entrepreneur-friendly—the proposal is backed by companies like Spotify and Tuenti. Europe lacks some of the necessary know-how. We need to improve in financial services and in data privacy, moving past the obsolete regulatory framework we now have and making a bid to achieve a well-connected continent with a single market for 4G mobile connections. We need to make it easier to hire talent outside each given country.

The use of e-commerce should be encouraged among small and medium-sized enterprises so that growth opportunities can be exploited more intensely. Following the global trend of the Internet, companies should internalize their online business. And much more emphasis should be placed on new technologies training in the academic and business spheres.

Modern life is global, and Spain is competing against every other country in the world. I do not believe in defeatism or victim culture. Optimism should not translate into callousness, but I sincerely believe that if you think creatively, if you find a different angle, if you innovate with a positive attitude and without fear of failure, then you can change things for the better. Spain needs to seize the moment to reinvent itself, grasping the opportunities offered up by the online world. We need to act, take decisions, avoid “paralysis through analysis.” I sometimes feel we are too inclined to navel-gazing: Spain shuts itself off, fascinated with its own contradictions and local issues, and loses its sense of perspective. Spain should open up to the outside, use the crisis as an opportunity to do things differently, in a new way—creating value, underlining its strengths, aspiring to be something more.

In the United States, for instance, diving headfirst into a personal Internet-related startup is regarded as perfectly normal. I’m glad to see that this entrepreneurial spirit is beginning to take hold here as well. I believe in working hard, showing perseverance, keeping your goals in view, surrounding yourself with talent, and taking risks. No risk, no success. We live in an increasingly globalized world: of course you can have a Spain-based Internet startup, there are no frontiers.

We need to take risks and keep one step ahead of the future. It is precisely the most disruptive innovations that require radical changes in approach and product, which might not even find a market yet ready for them—these are the areas providing real opportunities to continue being relevant, to move forward and “earn” the future, creating value and maintaining leadership. It is the disruptive changes that enable a business, product, or service to revolutionize the market—and, particularly in the technology sector, such changes are a necessity.

The Future of Social Communications, Innovation, Mobile Technologies, and Total Connectivity in Our Lives

The future of social communications will be shaped by an  always-online  culture.  Always online  is already here and will set the trend going forward. Total connectivity, the Internet you can take with you wherever you go, is growing unstoppably. There is no turning back for global digitalization.

Innovation is the driving force of growth and progress, so we need to shake up entrenched processes, products, services, and industries, so that all of us together—including established businesses, reacting to their emerging competitors—can move forward together.

Innovation is shaping and will continue to shape the future of social communications. It is already a reality that Internet connections are increasingly mobile. A survey we conducted in early 2013 in partnership with Ipsos found that 94 percent of Tuenti users aged 16 to 35 owned cell phones, 84 percent of users connected to the Internet using their phones, and 47 percent had mobile data subscriptions for connecting to the Internet. A total of 74 percent of users reported connecting to the Internet from their phone on a daily basis, while 84 percent did so at least weekly. Only 13 percent did not use their phones to connect to the Internet, and that percentage is decreasing every day.

Mobile Internet use alters the pattern of device usage; the hitherto familiar ways of accessing the Internet are changing too. The smartphone activities taking up the most time (over three hours a day) include instant messaging (38%), social media use (35%), listening to music (24%), and web browsing (20%). The activities taking up the least time (under five minutes a day) are: SMS texting (51%), watching movies (43%), reading and writing e-mail (38%), and talking on the phone (32%). Things are still changing.

Smartphones are gaining ground in everyday life. Many of the purposes formerly served by other items now involve using our smartphones. Some 75 percent of young people reported having replaced their MP3 player with their phone, 74 percent use their phone as an alarm clock, 70 percent use it as their camera, and 67 percent use it as their watch.

We have been observing these shifts for a while, which is why we decided to reinvent ourselves by placing smartphones at the heart of our strategy. I want to use this example as a showcase of what is happening in the world of social communication and the Internet in general: mobile connectivity is bringing about a new revolution. Tuenti is no longer just a social network, and social media as a whole are becoming more than just websites. The new Tuenti provides native mobile apps for Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Phone, as well as the Firefox OS app and the mobile version of the website, m.tuenti.com. Tuenti is now a cross-platform service that lets users connect with their friends and contacts from wherever they may be, using their device of choice. A user with a laptop can IM in real time with a user with a smartphone, and switch from one device to another without losing the thread of the conversation. The conversations are in the cloud, so data and contacts are preserved independently of the devices being used. This means the experience has to be made uniform across platforms, which sometimes involves paring down functionalities, given the processing and screen size limitations of mobile devices. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and so on are all evolving to become increasingly cross-platform experiences. But Tuenti is the first social network that has also developed its own Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO)—the company is an Internet service provider over the mobile network. Tuenti is an MVNO with a social media angle, and this may be the future path of telecommunications.

Social media are evolving to become something more, and innovation must be their hallmark if they are to continue being relevant. Tuenti now embraces both social communications and telecom services provision, offering value added by letting you use the mobile app free of charge and without using up your data traffic allowance, even if you have no credit on your prepaid card—this is wholly revolutionary in the telecom sector. The convergence of social media with more traditional sectors is already bringing about a new context for innovation, a new arena for the development and growth of the Internet.

Just about everything in the world of the Internet still lies ahead of us, and mobile communications as we know them must be reinvented by making them more digital. The future will be shaped by innovation converging with the impact of mobility. This applies not just to social media but to the Internet in general, particularly in the social communications field. I feel that many people do not understand what we are doing and have no idea of the potential development of companies like ours at the global level. Right now, there may be somebody out there, in some corner of the world, developing the tool that will turn the Internet upside down all over again. The tool that will alter our day-to-day life once more. Creating more opportunities, providing new benefits to individuals, bringing more individual and collective well-being. Just ten years ago, social media did not exist; in the next ten years, something else radically new will emerge. There are many areas in which products, processes, and services can be improved or created afresh. The future is brimming with opportunities, and the future of the Internet has only just begun.

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Essay on Future Of Internet

Students are often asked to write an essay on Future Of Internet in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Future Of Internet

The speed of the internet.

In the future, the internet will be much faster. This means you can download your favorite games and movies in seconds. With this speed, learning online and watching videos will be smoother, without any annoying pauses.

Learning and the Internet

Schools will use the internet more to teach students. You might go on virtual field trips or talk to a class on the other side of the world. Homework could be more fun with interactive lessons and help from online teachers.

Staying Safe Online

Staying safe on the internet will get better. New tools will help keep your private information secret and block bad content. Parents and teachers will have more ways to make sure kids can enjoy the internet without worry.

Internet Everywhere

The internet will be available in more places, even where it’s hard to get now. You could be on a mountain or in a small village and still chat with your friends or do your schoolwork online.

Also check:

• Paragraph on Future Of Internet

250 Words Essay on Future Of Internet

The internet in years to come.

The internet is like a giant library that grows bigger every day. It lets us talk to friends, learn new things, and play fun games. In the future, the internet will change in exciting ways.

Speed and Connection

Imagine downloading a movie in just a blink. Future internet will be super fast. This means you can learn and play without any waiting. Even places without good internet now will get connected, so more people can join in the fun.

Smart Gadgets

Your fridge, watch, and even your shoes might talk to the internet one day. This is called the Internet of Things, or IoT. It means everyday items will help make life easier by sharing information over the web.

Learning and Fun

Schools will use the internet to make learning more fun. You might go on virtual trips to space or the bottom of the ocean. Games will look real, like you’re inside them, thanks to something called virtual reality.

Staying Safe

With more of our lives online, staying safe is important. New tools will help protect your information from people who shouldn’t see it. It’s like having a stronger lock on your online diary.

The future internet is like a magic carpet, ready to take us on amazing adventures. It will be faster, reach more people, and offer new ways to learn and play. But just like any adventure, we’ll need to be careful to stay safe while we explore.

500 Words Essay on Future Of Internet

The internet in coming years.

Imagine a world where your fridge can order milk before you even know you’re out of it. This world is not far away, thanks to the internet. The future of the internet is full of exciting changes that will make life easier and more fun.

Super Fast Speeds

Soon, the internet will be much faster. This means you won’t have to wait for videos to load or games to stop lagging. With new technology like 5G, which is a fancy way of saying “really fast internet for phones,” you can download your favorite movie in seconds, not minutes.

In the future, the internet will reach every corner of the world. Even if you’re on a mountain or in a remote village, you’ll be able to connect. This is great news for learning and playing online, no matter where you are.

Smart Homes and Cities

Homes and cities will become “smart.” This means they’ll use the internet to do cool things. Streetlights might turn on only when they’re needed, saving energy. Your house could tell you if you forgot to close the door. It’s like giving your city and home a brain!

Schools will use the internet in new ways. You might go on virtual field trips to museums across the world or learn about the stars by looking at a live feed from a space station. Homework could be more like playing a game, which makes learning fun.

With the internet being such a big part of life, staying safe is important. In the future, there will be better ways to keep your information private. It’s like having a stronger lock on your online diary.

Health and the Internet

Doctors will use the internet to keep us healthy. They might use tiny robots that go inside our bodies to find out what’s wrong. These robots will send information over the internet to the doctor. It’s like having a doctor’s helper inside you!

Entertainment and Fun

Games and movies will change too. You might be able to step into a game as if you’re really there. Movies could let you choose what happens next. It’s like being the director of your own story.

Working Together

The internet will help people from all over the world work together to solve big problems, like cleaning the oceans or finding new ways to grow food. It’s like having a giant team of friends helping each other.

The future of the internet is bright and full of possibilities. It will bring people together, make our lives easier, and open up new ways of learning and having fun. Just like a good friend, the internet in the future will help us discover and grow. And just like any friendship, it’s important to take care of it and use it wisely. So, get ready for an amazing journey into the future with the internet by your side!

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The Future of the Internet

• Living Internet
• Future of the Internet

Just as the Internet revolutionized how the world accessed information and communicated through the 1990’s, the ongoing development in speed, bandwidth , and functionality will continue to cause fundamental changes to how our world operates for decades to come. Some of the major trends shaping the future of the Internet are summarized below, along with extrapolated predictions:

• Globalism . The future of the Internet global distribution of information and knowledge at lower and lower cost will continue to lift the world community for generations to come. People will have access to any information they wish, get smarter sooner, and be more aware of the world outside their local environment. A better informed humanity will make better macro-level decisions, and an increasingly integrated world will drive international relations towards a global focus. Attachments to countries will marginally decrease, and attachments to the Earth as a shared resource will significantly increase.

Three dimensional graphics will become more sophisticated, and virtual reality interfaces such as viewers and tactile feedback systems will become more realistic. The technology will be applied to innovative ways to navigate the Internet’s information universe, for hyper-realistic gaming, and for group communications. There will come a day when you will be able to have dinner with a group of friends each in a different city, almost as though you were in the same room, although you will all have to bring your own food.

• Bandwidth . The future of the Internet growth in bandwidth availability shows little sign of flattening. Large increases of bandwidth in the 10 Mbps range and up will continue to be deployed to home users through cable, phone, and wireless networks. Cable modems and telephone-based DSL modems will continue to spread high speed Internet throughout populated areas. High resolution audio, video, and virtual reality will be increasingly available online and on demand, and the cost of all kinds of Internet connections will continue to drop.
• Grids . The future of the Internet grid movement is as inevitable as the spread of the Internet seems now. The connection of thousands of computers on the Internet together to solve problems, often called grid computing , will continue to evolve and change many areas of human endevour. In a large scale example of the connected Internet fostering technological cooperation, un-used computer cycles from home users across the world will be harnessed together to provide enormous reservoirs of computer power for all sorts of purposes. Increasingly used for scientific and engineering research, grids can create processing powerhouses far larger than any one organization by itself.
• Integration . The future of the Internet integration with an increasing number of other technologies is as natural as a musician’s experimentation with notes. The Internet will become increasingly integrated with phones, televisions, home appliances, portable digital assistants, and a range of other small hardware devices, providing an unprecedented, nearly uniform level of integrated data communications. Users will be able to access, status, and control this connected infrastructure from anywhere on the Internet.

One of the leading efforts to define the future of the next generation Internet is the Internet2 project , which grew out of the transition of the NSFNET to the Very High Speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS, vbns.net). The vBNS supported very high bandwidth research applications, and was established in 1995 as a cooperative agreement between MCI and the National Science Foundation .

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800 Words Essay On Internet in English for Students

The internet has transformed the world in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. It has revolutionized how we communicate, access information, conduct business, and even how we entertain ourselves. The internet has become an integral part of our daily lives, and it’s hard to imagine a world without it.

At its core, the Internet is a vast network of interconnected computers and servers that allows for the exchange of information and data across the globe. It was originally conceived as a way for researchers and scientists to share information and collaborate on projects, but it has since evolved into a ubiquitous platform that has permeated every aspect of modern life.

One of the most significant impacts of the internet has been on communication. Before the internet, communication was limited by geography and time zones. People had to rely on physical mail, telephone calls, or face-to-face meetings to communicate with one another. The internet has made communication instantaneous and borderless. With the rise of email, instant messaging, video conferencing, and social media platforms, people can communicate with each other from anywhere in the world, at any time.

The internet has also revolutionized the way we access information. In the past, people had to rely on physical libraries, books, and other printed materials to access information. Today, with the internet, a wealth of information is available at our fingertips. From online encyclopedias to news websites, academic journals, and online databases, the internet has made it possible to access information on virtually any topic imaginable.

Another significant impact of the internet has been on the economy and the way we conduct business. The rise of e-commerce has made it possible for businesses to reach a global market and sell their products and services online. Online shopping has become increasingly popular, and many traditional brick-and-mortar stores have had to adapt to this new reality by establishing an online presence.

Furthermore, the internet has enabled the rise of the gig economy, where people can work as freelancers or contractors for multiple clients and projects simultaneously. This has created new opportunities for individuals to earn a living and has allowed businesses to access a global talent pool.

The internet has also had a profound impact on education. Online learning platforms and distance education programs have made it possible for students to access educational resources and attend classes from anywhere in the world. This has opened up new opportunities for people who may not have had access to traditional educational institutions due to geographical or financial constraints.

However, the internet has also brought with it a number of challenges and concerns. One of the biggest concerns is privacy and security. With so much personal information being shared online, there is a risk of data breaches and cyber attacks. Companies and individuals need to be vigilant about protecting their personal information and implementing strong cybersecurity measures.

Another concern is the spread of misinformation and fake news. The internet has made it easier for anyone to publish and share information, regardless of its accuracy or credibility. This has led to the proliferation of fake news and conspiracy theories, which can have serious consequences for individuals and society as a whole.

There is also concern about the impact of the internet on mental health and well-being. The constant exposure to social media and the pressure to curate a perfect online persona can lead to feelings of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Additionally, the addictive nature of the internet and the constant stream of information can contribute to decreased attention spans and difficulty focusing on tasks.

Despite these challenges, the internet has proven to be an invaluable tool that has transformed the way we live, work, and interact with the world around us. It has opened up new opportunities for communication, education, and economic growth, and has made it possible for people to connect and collaborate in ways that were previously unimaginable.

As we move forward, it is important to address the challenges and concerns surrounding the internet while also embracing its potential for innovation and progress. This may involve implementing stronger cybersecurity measures, promoting digital literacy and critical thinking skills, and encouraging responsible and ethical use of the internet.

In conclusion, the internet has had a profound impact on virtually every aspect of modern life. It has revolutionized communication, education, business, and access to information. While it has brought with it a number of challenges and concerns, the internet has proven to be an invaluable tool that has transformed the way we live and interact with the world around us. As we continue to navigate the digital age, it is important to embrace the opportunities that the internet provides while also addressing its challenges and promoting responsible and ethical use.

Uses of Internet

In the 21st century, the internet has become an indispensable part of our daily lives, revolutionizing the way we connect, learn, work, and entertain ourselves. Its multifaceted uses have permeated every aspect of society, bringing about unprecedented convenience and opportunities.

Communication stands out as one of the internet’s most significant uses. Instant messaging, video calls, and social media platforms have transcended geographical barriers, allowing people to stay connected with friends and family across the globe. The internet has turned the world into a global village, fostering a sense of unity and understanding among diverse cultures.

Education has undergone a remarkable transformation due to the internet. Online courses, tutorials, and educational resources have made learning accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Students can pursue degrees, acquire new skills, and access a wealth of information at their fingertips, democratizing education and breaking down traditional barriers to learning.

The internet has also redefined the way we work. Remote collaboration tools, cloud computing, and virtual offices have become essential components of the modern workplace. This shift has not only increased efficiency but has also opened up new opportunities for freelancers and remote workers, contributing to the rise of the gig economy.

In the realm of information, the internet has become an unparalleled resource. Search engines allow us to access vast amounts of information on any topic imaginable. This democratization of information has empowered individuals, encouraging critical thinking and facilitating informed decision-making.

Entertainment has undergone a digital revolution, with streaming services, online gaming, and social media platforms providing endless avenues for amusement. The internet has not only transformed how we consume content but has also given rise to new forms of artistic expression and creativity.

In conclusion, the internet’s uses are multifaceted and far-reaching, impacting every facet of our lives. From connecting people across the globe to revolutionizing education, work, and entertainment, the internet continues to be a transformative force, shaping the present and influencing the future. As we navigate the digital landscape, it is essential to harness the potential of the internet responsibly, ensuring that it remains a force for positive change in the years to come.

Convenience Due to Internet

The advent of the internet has ushered in an era of unprecedented convenience, transforming the way we live, work, and interact with the world. In our fast-paced lives, the internet has become a cornerstone of efficiency and ease, offering a multitude of conveniences that have reshaped our daily routines.

Communication is perhaps the most obvious and impactful convenience brought about by the internet. Instant messaging, email, and social media platforms have revolutionized the way we connect with others. Whether it’s staying in touch with loved ones, collaborating with colleagues, or reaching out to friends across the globe, the internet has made communication instantaneous and seamless.

The convenience of online shopping has fundamentally altered the retail landscape. With just a few clicks, consumers can browse, compare prices, and purchase a vast array of products from the comfort of their homes. The rise of e-commerce platforms has not only made shopping more convenient but has also introduced the concept of doorstep delivery, saving time and eliminating the need for physical store visits.

Information retrieval has been transformed by the internet’s vast repository of knowledge. Search engines provide instant access to information on any conceivable topic, enabling users to quickly find answers, conduct research, and stay informed. This ease of information retrieval has empowered individuals, making knowledge more accessible than ever before.

The workplace has undergone a paradigm shift with the internet, enabling remote work and flexible schedules. Online collaboration tools, cloud computing, and virtual communication platforms have made it possible for individuals to work from virtually anywhere, reducing the constraints of traditional office settings and commuting.

Entertainment has also become infinitely more convenient through streaming services, online gaming, and digital media platforms. The ability to access a diverse range of content on-demand has given consumers unprecedented control over their entertainment choices, eliminating the need to adhere to fixed schedules or physical media.

In conclusion, the internet has woven a tapestry of convenience into the fabric of our lives. From streamlined communication and effortless online shopping to boundless information access and flexible work arrangements, the conveniences offered by the internet have become integral to our modern existence. As we navigate this digital landscape, the ongoing evolution of internet technologies continues to enhance and redefine the meaning of convenience in our interconnected world.

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Essay On Internet- FAQs

What is internet short essay.

In the modern time, internet has become is one of the most powerful and interesting tools all across the world. The Internet is a network of networks and collection of many services and resources which benefits us in various ways. Using internet we can access World Wide Web from any place.

What is Internet in 150 words?

The internet is the most recent man-made creation that connects the world. The world has narrowed down after the invention of the internet. It has demolished all boundaries, which were the barriers between people and has made everything accessible. The internet is helpful to us in different ways.

What is internet 100 words?

A. The internet, a recent man-made marvel, has brought the world closer. It has shattered all barriers and made everything accessible. The internet serves us in countless ways, from sharing information with people across the world to staying connected with our loved ones.

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Essay on Internet in English For Students

Engage with thought-provoking perspectives on the future of the internet and its profound implications for the global community in Essay on Internet.

November 20, 2023

Table of Contents

Essay on Internet: The Internet is a network of networks connecting computers worldwide through standardized communication protocols (like TCP/IP) using which we can exchange information between multiple computers. Furthermore, it provides a wide range of information according to the user’s needs. Using it, you can send e-mails, exchange news, make payments, track your location, and more.

Essay on the Internet in 100 Words

The modern invention of the internet, resulting from advanced technology, offers incredible opportunities for global information access. With the internet, individuals anywhere can connect multiple computers to retrieve data from any connected device easily. It enables fast transmission of messages and information to various devices such as phones, computers, and tablets within seconds. The internet holds an immense amount of information, with billions of operating websites covering various topics, including domestic affairs, business, academics, and government-related matters. In essence, it can be described as a network comprising other networks.

Essay on the Internet in 150 Words 

The Internet can be accessed via a telecommunications line and modulator-demodulator, which converts analogue telephone signals into digital computer signals. While it has brought countless benefits, we cannot ignore its drawbacks. The Internet is utilised for various purposes worldwide, such as sending emails, messaging, online chatting, file transfer, and accessing web pages and other documents through the World Wide Web.

When we have internet access, we can access the World Wide Web. If we open web pages, we can get all the information we need to fulfil our purpose. We can open them for a minute, an hour, or even save them to use later. We can prepare our projects very quickly and easily.

Essay on the Internet in 200 Words

The Internet has greatly simplified our lives, eliminating the need to physically go out for tasks such as bill payment, shopping, movie viewing, and business transactions. Its convenience and practicality make it ubiquitous in various settings, including workplaces, offices, schools, colleges, banks, educational institutions, training centres, shops, railway stations, airports, restaurants, hotels and most significantly – in each household for various purposes.

By paying money to our Internet Service Provider, we can access the Internet facility from any corner of the world for one week or month, depending on our Internet plan.

Since the introduction of the internet, our world has undergone significant positive and negative changes. The benefits are evident for various individuals and organisations, such as students, businessmen, government agencies, and research organisations. Students can easily access relevant information for their studies, businessmen can efficiently manage their business matters from any location, government agencies can operate more efficiently with timely completion of tasks, and research organisations have expanded capabilities, leading to impressive outcomes.

Essay on Internet in 250 Words

It saves time and effort, making it incredibly valuable for gaining knowledge and increasing income. With its quick access to information, the Internet has become a convenient resource at our fingertips. It is a system of interconnected networks that allows multiple computers to be managed from one central location. Today, the effects of the internet can be seen everywhere in the world. You only need a telephone line, computer, and modem to access it.

Using it, we can gather, collect, and store information from websites on any topic on our computer in seconds. In my school’s computer lab, we can access the information needed for our project. My teacher assists me in getting online information and using it appropriately.

Online communication has dramatically increased speed and convenience, allowing individuals to connect with others worldwide through video conferences or messaging. This has particularly benefited students, as they can utilise the internet to study for exams, complete projects, and participate in extracurricular activities. Moreover, students can contact their teachers for help with unresolved questions or connect with friends for various purposes.

Essay on Internet in 300 Words

In today’s world, the internet is a powerful and captivating tool that spans the globe. With its vast network and abundance of services and resources, it offers numerous benefits. The Internet provides many advantages, from accessing the World Wide Web from anywhere to utilising email, search engines, and social media platforms to connect with celebrities and informative websites. It has become a constant companion for many, as we use it for various purposes such as staying up-to-date, engaging in video chats and more. 

It is beneficial for students to have access to the internet, which is detrimental to their overall well-being. Parents are mostly aware of this type of danger. However, some do not and use the internet openly. Therefore, children should use the internet facility under the proper guidance of their parents.

A security system can safeguard our valuable online data by requiring a username and password for access. We can utilise various instant messaging applications through the internet to communicate with friends, parents, or teachers quickly. However, some countries, such as North Korea and Myanmar, prohibit internet usage because they believe it is detrimental. It is important to note that downloading content from websites can threaten our computers by introducing viruses, adware, malware, spyware, or other harmful programs. In addition, hackers may gain unauthorised access to our confidential information through the internet, even with password protection.

Essay on Internet in 400 Words

The Internet has transformed our daily routines into simple and efficient tasks. It is an indispensable invention that has become an integral part of our lives. The Internet has significantly improved the ease of online communication compared to the traditional method of sending letters, which was time-consuming and required extensive travel. Today, we can connect to the internet and use social networking sites or platforms like Gmail or Yahoo to send instant messages within seconds.

Adopting computerisation in various settings such as offices, schools, colleges, training centres, NGOs, and more has significantly reduced the use of paper and paperwork. With the internet, individuals can access news from all over the world without searching multiple sources. The internet effectively gathers vast amounts of information on any topic within seconds, making it a valuable resource for references and activities. Moreover, it has greatly benefited the education, travel, and business industries by providing easy access to online public libraries, textbooks, and other relevant resources.

People used to take a lot of time to get travel tickets, such as standing in long queues and waiting for their number when there was no internet. In the digital realm, there is no need to travel great distances for meetings or other purposes physically. Instead, one can easily participate in online meetings from the convenience of their office through video calls, conferencing, Skype, or other communication tools.

This technology also allows for remote admission into desired schools, colleges and universities and the recruitment of highly skilled employees and teachers. It also facilitates business transactions, banking activities, license applications, money transfers, cooking tutorials, and bill payments and even allows hassle-free delivery when purchasing online. The Internet offers a multitude of possibilities for various activities and tasks.

Essay on Internet FAQs

An Internet short essay explores the significance and impact of the Internet in our lives. It typically covers aspects like communication, information access, and the transformation of various sectors through digital connectivity.

The Internet is a global network connecting millions of devices, allowing information exchange and communication. It facilitates access to vast resources, from educational materials to entertainment, and plays a pivotal role in shaping modern society, fostering collaboration, and bridging geographical gaps.

The Internet is a vast interconnected network enabling global communication and information exchange. It connects individuals, businesses, and governments, offering access to a plethora of data and services. Its impact spans education, commerce, and social interactions.

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The future of digital spaces and their role in democracy, many experts say public online spaces will significantly improve by 2035 if reformers, big technology firms, governments and activists tackle the problems created by misinformation, disinformation and toxic discourse. others expect continuing troubles as digital tools and forums are used to exploit people’s frailties, stoke their rage and drive them apart.

This is the 13th “ Future of the Internet ” canvassing Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center have conducted together to gather expert views about important digital issues. In this report, the questions focused on the prospects for improvements in the tone and activities of the digital public sphere by 2035. This is a nonscientific canvassing based on a nonrandom sample; this broad array of opinions about where current trends may lead in the next decade represents only the points of view of the individuals who responded to the queries. Pew Research Center and Elon’s Imagining the Internet Center built a database of experts to canvass from a wide range of fields, inviting professionals and policy people based in government bodies, nonprofits and foundations, technology businesses and think tanks, as well as interested academics and technology innovators. The predictions reported here came in response to a set of questions in an online canvassing conducted between June 29 and Aug. 2, 2021. In all, 862 technology innovators and developers, business and policy leaders, researchers and activists responded to at least one of the questions covered in this report. More on the methodology underlying this canvassing and the participants can be found in the section titled “ About this canvassing of experts .”

Those who worry about the future of democracy focus a lot of their anxiety on the way that the things that happen in online public spaces are harming deliberation and the fabric of society. To be sure, billions of users appreciate what the internet does for them. But the climate in some segments of social media and other online spaces has been called a “ dumpster fire ” of venom, misinformation, conspiracy theories and goads to violence.

Social media platforms are drawing fire for their role in all of this. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a congressional panel requested that Facebook, Google, Twitter, Parler, 4chan, Twitch and TikTok release all records related to misinformation around the 2020 election, including efforts to influence or overturn the presidential election results. In September 2021, a five-part series in The Wall Street Journal exposed details that seem to show that Facebook has allowed the diffusion of misinformation, disinformation and toxicity that has resulted in ethnic violence and harm to teenage girls and has undermined COVID-19 vaccination efforts. And The Journal’s source, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, followed up by telling the U.S. Senate that she had gone public with her explosive material “because I believe that Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy.”

Worries over the rise in the acrid tone and harmful and manipulative interactions in some online spaces, and concerns over the role of technology firms in all of this, have spawned efforts by tech activists to try to redesign online spaces in ways that facilitate debate, enhance civility and provide personal security. A selection of these initiatives were described in a spring 2021 article in The Atlantic Monthly by Anne Applebaum and Peter Pomerantsev. Among the suggested solutions documented in the piece:

• The creation of an internet version of public media along the lines of PBS and NPR;
• “ Middleware ” that could allow people to set an algorithm to give them the kind of internet experience they want, perhaps without the dystopian side effects;
• Online upvoting systems that favor content that could push partisans toward consensus, rather than polarizing them;
• An internet “bill of rights” allowing “self-sovereign identity” that lets people stay anonymous online, but weeds out bots; and
• “ Constructive communication ” systems set up to dial down anger and bridge divides.

In light of the current conversations about the need to rethink and redesign online public spaces, Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center asked experts how they expect the digital public sphere to evolve by 2035. Some 862 technology innovators, developers, business and policy leaders, researchers and activists responded to this specific question:

Looking ahead to 2035, will digital spaces and people’s use of them be changed in ways that significantly serve the public good?

Some 61% chose the option declaring that, “yes,” by 2035, digital spaces and people’s uses of them will change in ways that significantly serve the public good; 39% chose the “no” option, positing that by 2035, digital spaces and people’s uses of them will not change in ways that significantly serve the public good.

It is important to note that a large share of who chose “yes” – that online public spaces would improve by 2035 – also wrote in their answers that the changes between now and then could go either way. They often listed one or more difficult hurdles to overcome before that outcome can be achieved. Thus, the numeric findings reported here are not fully indicative of the troubles that they think lie between now and 2035.

In fact, in answer to a separate question in which they were asked how they see digital spaces generally evolving now, a majority ( 70% ), said current technological evolution has both positives and negatives , 18% said digital spaces are evolving in a mostly negative way that is likely to lead to a worse future for society, 10% said the online world is evolving in a mostly positive way that is likely to lead to a better society, and about 3% said digital spaces are not evolving in one direction or another .

It is also worth noting that the responses were gathered in mid-summer of 2021. People’s responses came in the cultural context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and at a time when rising concerns over climate change , racial justice and social inequality were particularly prominent – and half a year after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol in the aftermath of one of the most highly contentious U.S. presidential elections in recent history.

This is a nonscientific canvassing, based on a nonrandom sample. The results represent only the opinions of the individuals who responded to the queries and are not projectable to any other population.

The bulk of this report covers these experts’ written answers explaining their responses to our questions. They sounded many broad themes in sharing their insights about the evolution of the digital “town squares” most people frequent.

The themes are outlined in the tables that follow below:

As they considered these questions, some of these experts predicted that changes of a different order of magnitude are also in store by 2035. Some of the most compelling ideas include:

• Brad Templeton advanced a “new moral theory [that] it is wrong to exploit known flaws in the human psyche.” He argues that the embrace of “psyche-exploitation avoidance” would lead to a new design of online spaces.
• Mike Liebhold outlined a future with applied machine intelligence everywhere, continuous pervasive cybersecurity vulnerabilities, ubiquitous conversational bot agents, holographic media and telepresence and cobotics (collaborative robotics), among other things.
• Carolina Rossini predicted that a regulatory agency to monitor technology’s impact on health – a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for algorithms – will arise as increasing numbers of digital technology tools are placed in people’s bodies.
• Raashi Saxena urged, “We do not have a global, agreed-upon list of digital harms that can be inflicted upon us … We first need to define the rights to be protected.”
• Jerome Glenn said a new civilization will emerge as the “Information Age” gives way to the “Conscious-Technology Age” through the force of two megatrends: “First, humans will become cyborgs, as our biology becomes integrated with technology. Second, our built environment will incorporate more artificial intelligence.”
• Cory Doctorow said the “tyranny of network effects” will be broken if interoperability is imposed on tech companies so that, for instance, people could move their social media networks from one platform to another and easily abandon online spaces they do not like.
• Robin Raskin predicted, “The metaverse – digital twins of real worlds or entirely fabricated worlds – will be a large presence by 2035, unfortunately with some of the same bad practices on the internet today such as personal-identity infringements.”
• Beth Simone Noveck expects new “governance models” for public online spaces that allow citizens and groups to participate directly in policymaking and provision of services.
• James Hendler believes there will be tech advances that allow people to control their online identities and privacy preferences in ways that thwart omnipresent surveillance schemes.
• Barry Chudakov predicts “the self will go digital” and exist in the flesh and in its digital avatar. “Identity is thereby multiple and fluid: Roles, sexual orientation and self-presentation evolve from solely in-person to in-space.”

In the next chapter, there is a collection of responses from technology and academic experts that cover a range of issues tied to online public spaces and are noteworthy for their insights, and for the prominence of the respondents. It closes with two essay-style responses to these questions from internet sages Barry Chudakov and Judith Donath .

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Report Materials

Table of contents, social media fact sheet, 7 facts about americans and instagram, social media use in 2021, 64% of americans say social media have a mostly negative effect on the way things are going in the u.s. today, share of u.s. adults using social media, including facebook, is mostly unchanged since 2018, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Essay On Internet for Students and Children

500+ words essay on internet.

We live in the age of the internet. Also, it has become an important part of our life that we can’t live without it. Besides, the internet is an invention of high-end science and modern technology . Apart from that, we are connected to internet 24×7. Also, we can send big and small messages and information faster than ever. In this essay on the Internet, we are going to discuss various things related to the internet.

Reach of Internet

It is very difficult to estimate the area that the internet cover. Also, every second million people remain connected to it with any problem or issue. Apart from that, just like all the things the internet also has some good and bad effect on the life of people. So the first thing which we have to do is learn about the good and bad effect of the internet.

Good effects of the internet mean all those things that the internet make possible. Also, these things make our life easier and safer.

Bad effects of the internet mean all those things that we can no longer do because of the internet. Also, these things cause trouble for oneself and others too.

You can access in any corner of the world. Also, it is very easy to use and manage. In today’s world, we cannot imagine our life without it.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Uses Of Internet

From the time it first came into existence until now the internet has completed a long journey. Also, during this journey, the internet has adopted many things and became more user-friendly and interactive. Besides, every big and small things are available on internet and article or material that you require can be obtainable from internet.

Tim Berners-Lee can be called one of the main father of internet as he invented/discovered the WWW (World Wide Web) which is used on every website. Also, there are millions of pages and website on the internet that it will take you years to go through all of them.

The Internet can be used to do different things like you can learn, teach, research, write, share, receive, e-mail , explore, and surf the internet.

Read Essay on Technology here

Convenience Due To Internet

Because of internet, our lives have become more convenient as compared to the times when we don’t have internet. Earlier, we have to stand in queues to send mails (letters), for withdrawing or depositing money, to book tickets, etc. but after the dawn of the internet, all these things become quite easy. Also, we do not have to waste our precious time standing in queues.

Also, the internet has contributed a lot to the environment as much of the offices (government and private), school and colleges have become digital that saves countless paper.

Although, there is no doubt that the internet had made our life easier and convenient but we can’t leave the fact that it has caused many bigger problems in the past. And with the speed, we are becoming addict to it a day in will come when it will become our basic necessity.

{ “@context”: “https://schema.org”, “@type”: “FAQPage”, “mainEntity”: [ { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What are the limitation of internet?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “Although internet can help you with anything but there are certain limitation to it. First of it does not have a physical appearance. Secondly, it does not have emotions and thirdly, it can’t send you to a place where you can’t go (physically).” } }, { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What is the ideal age for using internet?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “Nowadays everybody from small kids to adult is internet addicts. So it is difficult to decide an ideal age for using internet. However, according to researches using internet from an early age can cause problems in the child so internet usage of small children should be controlled or banned.” } } ] }

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Essay on Importance of Internet: Samples for Students

• Updated on  
• Nov 23, 2023

Internet is not just a need or luxury, it has become a household necessity. It was used as a source of entertainment but now it is impossible to work in offices or study without the Internet. When the global pandemic locked everyone in their house, it became an important medium to connect, study and work. Students were able to study without the risk of catching COVID-19 because of the Internet. The importance of the internet is also a common topic in various entrance exams such as SAT , TOEFL , and UPSC . In this blog, you will learn how to write an essay on the importance of the Internet.

This Blog Includes:

Tips to write the perfect essay on internet, sample 1 of essay on the importance of the internet (100 words), sample essay 2 – importance of the internet (150 words), sample essay 3 on use of internet for student (300 words).

Also Read: LNAT Sample Essays

Now the task of essay writing may not always be easy, hence candidates must always know a few tips to write the perfect essay. Mentioned below are a few tips for writing the correct essay:

• Prepare a basic outline to make sure there is continuity and relevance and no break in the structure of the essay
• Follow a given structure. Begin with an introduction then move on to the body which should be detailed and encapsulate the essence of the topic and finally the conclusion for readers to be able to comprehend the essay in a certain manner
• Students can also try to include solutions in their conclusion to make the essay insightful and lucrative to read.

Also Read: UPSC Essay Topics

The last few years have witnessed heavy reliance on the Internet. This has been because of multiple advantages that it has to offer – for instance, reducing work stress and changing the face of communication most importantly. If we take the current scenario, we cannot ignore how important the Internet is in our everyday lives. It is now indeed a challenging task to visualize a world without the internet. One may define the internet as a large library composed of stuff like – records, pictures, websites, and pieces of information. Another sector in which the internet has an undeniably important role to play is the field of communication. Without access to the internet, the ability to share thoughts and ideas across the globe would have also been just a dream. 

Also Read: IELTS Essay Topics

With the significant progress in technology, the importance of the internet has only multiplied with time. The dependence on the internet has been because of multiple advantages that it has to offer – for instance, reducing work stress and changing the face of communication most importantly. By employing the correct usage of the internet, we can find various information about the world. The internet hosts Wikipedia, which is considered to be one of the largest best-composed reference books kept up by a vast community of volunteer scholars and editors from all over the world. Through the internet, one may get answers to all their curiosity.

In the education sector too, it plays a major role, especially taking into consideration the pandemic. The Internet during the pandemic provided an easy alternative to replace the traditional education system and offers additional resources for studying, students can take their classes in the comforts of their homes. Through the internet, they can also browse for classes – lectures at no extra cost. The presence of the Internet is slowly replacing the use of traditional newspapers. It offers various recreational advantages as well. It can be correctly said that the internet plays a great role in the enhancement of quality of life.

Also Read: TOEFL Sample Essays

One may correctly define the 21st century as the age of science and technology. However, this has been possible not only by the efforts of the current generation but also by the previous generation. The result of one such advancement in the field of science and technology is the Internet. What is the Internet? So the internet can be called a connected group of networks that enable electronic communication. It is considered to be the world’s largest communication connecting millions of users.

The dependence on the internet has been because of multiple advantages that it has to offer – for instance, reducing work stress and changing the face of communication most importantly. Given the current scenario, the Internet has become a massive part of our daily lives, and it is now a challenging task to imagine the world without the Internet. The importance of the Internet in the field of communication definitely cannot be ignored.

Without access to the internet, the ability to share thoughts and ideas across the globe would have been just a dream. Today we can talk to people all over the globe only because of services like email, messenger, etc that are heavily reliant on the internet. Without the internet, it would be hard to imagine how large the world would be. The advent of the internet has made the task of building global friendships very easy.

The youth is mainly attracted by entertainment services. Streaming platforms like Amazon , Netflix, and YouTube have also gained immense popularity among internet users over the past few years. The presence of the Internet is slowly replacing the use of traditional newspapers among people too. 

In addition to these, it has various recreational advantages to offer as well. For instance, people can search for fun videos to watch and play games online with friends and other people all over the globe. Hence, we can say the internet holds immense importance in today’s era. Internet technology has indeed changed the dynamics of how we communicate, respond or entertain ourselves. Its importance in everyday life is never-ending. It can be correctly said that the internet plays a great role in the enhancement of quality of life. In the future too, we will see further changes in technology .

Also Read: SAT to Drop Optional Essays and Subject Tests from the Exam

Related Articles

The internet provides us with facts and data, as well as information and knowledge, to aid in our personal, social, and economic development. The internet has various applications; nevertheless, how we utilize it in our daily lives is determined by our particular needs and ambitions.

Here are five uses of the internet: email; sharing of files; watching movies and listening to songs; research purposes; and education.

The Internet has also altered our interactions with our families, friends, and life partners. Everyone is now connected to everyone else in a more simplified, accessible, and immediate manner; we can conduct part of our personal relationships using our laptops, smartphones, and tablets.

This was all about an essay on importance of Internet. The skill of writing an essay comes in handy when appearing for standardized language tests. Thinking of taking one soon? Leverage Live provides the best online test prep for the same. Register today to know more!

Nikita Puri

Nikita is a creative writer and editor, who is always ready to learn new skills. She has great knowledge about study abroad universities, researching and writing blogs about them. Being a perfectionist, she has a habit of keeping her tasks complete on time before the OCD hits her. When Nikita is not busy working, you can find her eating while binge-watching The office. Also, she breathes music. She has done her bachelor's from Delhi University and her master's from Jamia Millia Islamia.

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The future of the Internet?

Introduction:- "Deep you dig more you get" is the today's practical fundamental in daily life for the survival. It simply states that if you want to get more and more you have to go through inside the matter. Alike internet also running through this condition, what it needs is a good vision. In modern life internet works as a support system for every human being. Basically internet means digital networking which is a reliability of computer messaging. The internet we know and love today would not exist without the hard work of a lot of bright people. The technologies and standards they created make today's internet and World Wide Web possible. They deserve recognition and our gratitude for changing the world with internet. Internet is signals that are sent over wires that were established over vast distance. It was used first time by US Govt during the American civil war 1861-1865interner was evaluated by DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Project Agency) contracts with BBN (Bolt, Beranek and Newman) to create ARPAnet in 1968. The electronic signal standards +/- 15v. Is still used in network interface cards today. It has 5 nodes in starting in 1970 that are UCLA, Stanford, UC Santa Barbara, U of Utah and BBN. In 1984 on 1st January the internet with its 1000 hosts convert en masse to using TCP/IP for it's messaging.

Internet and India:- When we are going to discuss about the future of the internet the consideration will be dragged to two important parameters that is past and present of the internet. We should not forget that the future is a clear track of past records. It can be clearly defined that the future is completely depend upon us, in which direction we want to take this. In our country it is heavily used and demanded field. But we cannot deny that the misuses of internet are very high. Cyber crime now is a serious issue for our society. Internet simply makes our life simple easy and updating. The main and highest source of worldwide information is internet. But uses differ from brain to brain who uses it. A crime brain uses this as a source of easy things done through other by securing themselves. A clean and strong present reflects a clear and better future. So the future of the internet relies upon the present activities. The internet is used for the growth and development of the societies. There is no doubt that everyone need internet. It is the single medium which connects the people globally where there is no limit of uses. Firstly we have to give the knowledge of uses of internet to rural area people because a developed country needs developed citizen. Cyber crime has to be reduced because technology is made for a better life not for lost of life. Some steps taken in today will be the ladder for a better tomorrow. In modern India internet is used in every sector that is from defence to Government, education, health almost in every field. So it clearly shows a bright future of internet in tomorrow. The beautiful and useful part of internet is now so many students can be educated with the help of E-education. It also create different fields like E-commerce, E-consultancy, E-service, E-shopping etc. In current scenario our PM Mr. Modi uses 34mbps (megabytes per second) while an average internet connection in India is 2mbps. The recent state of internet quarterly report by internet content delivery network "Akamai" has shown that India ranks 115 in the World while South Korea has the maximum speed with 24.6mbps then Hong Kong and Switzerland that is 15.7mbps and 14.9mbps respectively. The average peak connection speed in India is 14mbps when only 1.2% users enjoy internet speed of more than 10mbps. It shows that the present of internet in India with comparing to other countries is not in a sound position but still in a growing manner. It can be clearly defined that the future is brighter through the ambition of "Digital India" project of Rs 1 lakh crore to ensure high speed internet access to all villages in India which is expected to be completed by 2019. To get a market of 50 million people participating Radio took 38 years, TV took 13 years while internet made the mark in just 4 years.

conclusion:- So, the future of the internet is completely depends upon the users how they use it, how to spread the knowledge of it and how to take the benefit of technology. These things are demanding a good and positive change within the mindset as well the society, because "if you want to change the world you have to change yourself".

Pinkypta Khuntia

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What you should know about the internet of everything.

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Have you updated your “smart toaster” recently? To ensure you don’t get hacked or your toaster isn’t recruited for some malicious deed, this might be a good idea. Do it now! As Scott J. Shackelford of the University of Indiana argues in his book The Internet of Things: What everyone needs to know : “We are just at the beginning of governing AI with cybersecurity in mind, including in the Internet of Things context.” The What Everyone Needs to Know® series from Oxford University Press is an excellent resource for the general public written in plain accessible language by experts. What follows is an interview with Scott:

We used to just have things with computers inside them, but now we have computers with things attached. Can you explain why this matters?

SS: The Internet of Things (IoT) has, in many ways, become the Internet of Everything (IoE). It’s now getting to the point that we must try hard, and sometimes pay a premium, to find consumer devices that aren’t smart. This extends across a broad range of product classifications and sectors, including cars, which have become little more than sleek smartphones on wheels. This revolution is having a range of consequences, from making it harder to repair everyday devices if you don’t have a background in coding, to dramatically increasing the attack surface that adversaries can potentially take advantage of in future conflicts. No nation, or at this point individual, is an island in cyberspace, however much some wish they were.

The explosion in Internet-connected stuff has been driven by three forces in particular. First, costs are plummeting. Consider that in 2004, the average price of an IoT sensor was $1.30; by 2018, it had dropped to 44¢, and has continued to fall. Second, connection speeds are increasing, and 5G (soon enough 6G) availability means that more devices than ever before can be connected together in an ever smaller geographic footprint. Third, companies can now offer a wider range of IoT-related services than ever before, from navigation and on-demand product delivery to health and wellbeing services, further driving demand.

In the internet of things, what types of things should the public be most concerned about?

SS: For consumers, it’s been very tough – even for those who care about their privacy, and their family’s security – to know how to shop for products that will be good stewards of their data. From smart speakers and TVs to cars, there is often a black box when it comes to what information is being gathered, for what purpose, and who’s getting access to it. That is starting to change with the FCC’s new US Cyber Trustmark program, which will be rolling out and giving consumers information about the privacy and security features of products like we already do through Energy Star with energy efficiency.

The public should be concerned first about vulnerabilities in existing products. Most people occasionally are prompted, and agree, to update their computers, tablets, and phones – few know about the need to update their smart toaster, which depending on the model might not even be possible. And, of course, even updated software can still be hacked by using zero day exploits, or hitherto unknown backdoors into systems that can recruit your smart products to form a botnet and take down a variety of services. This lack of awareness is compounded by the challenges of identifying secure devices for themselves and their families.

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Scott Shackelford

With the rapid advancement of AI, how will this matter when it comes to the internet of things?

SS: AI is already impacting smart products, as seen in offerings like Humane’s AI pin that allows you to speak with a bot at the touch of a button. When it comes to security, these models can help defenders guard against exploits, but also will enable attackers to find new backdoors into IoT systems. Most likely, this will serve to supercharge the threat environment making it that much more important both to deal with our existing IoT technical debt in the form of millions of unsecured devices like smart lightbulbs, and not making it worse by putting into place stronger requirements for ‘reasonable’ cybersecurity.

We are just at the beginning of governing AI with cybersecurity in mind, including in the IoT context. There have been a raft of efforts including the EU’s new AI Act, extension of their Products Liability Directive to cover software, and the Digital Services Act. In the US, we have seen a recent Biden Administration Executive Order focusing on AI, along with action at the state and local levels, and a push toward international AI norm building, but so far there are relatively few defined guardrails. Some of the more active states in the US include California, which has an IoT law on the books requiring that Internet-connected devices have ‘reasonable’ cybersecurity – I wouldn’t be too surprised if it also took a leading role in regulating the use of AI in this context even absent federal efforts to secure software, including AI.

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