Search engines using artificial intelligence could harmfully disrupt the digital economy, warns a researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center.

“[I]f AI search becomes our primary portal to the web, it threatens to disrupt an already precarious digital economy,” Benjamin Brooks wrote in a recent article in the MIT Technology Review.

“Today, the production of content online depends on a fragile set of incentives tied to virtual foot traffic: ads, subscriptions, donations, sales, or brand exposure,” he explained. “By shielding the web behind an all-knowing chatbot, AI search could deprive creators of the visits and ‘eyeballs’ they need to survive.”

Brooks urged the AI industry to address the content compensation problem before others do it. “The AI industry should use this narrow window of opportunity to build a smarter content marketplace before governments fall back on interventions that are ineffective, benefit only a select few, or hamper the free flow of ideas across the web,” he wrote.

https://www.technewsworld.com/story/ai-search-threatens-digital-economy-warns-researcher-179456.html