In a recent AI summit held in New York, Markham Erickson, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, defended the company’s stance on the use of AI-generated summaries in search results. His comments were a response to mounting anxiety about the technology.
The discourse was not without a backdrop; it followed the legal backlash from Penske Media Corporation, the parent company of Rolling Stone. Google’s AI Overviews, always present at the top of search results pages, are accused of reducing web traffic to original content providers. Penske alleges that this, in effect, eats into their revenue streams, highlighting the battle between original content creators and platforms that repurpose their copy.
In the midst of this, Erickson acknowledged the evolution of digital consumerism. “User preferences, and what users want, is also changing,” he iterated. In place of simple links, people are now looking for contextual answers and summaries. While Google does seek to serve this changing demand, it also aims to keep supporting the older model of sharing original sources.
The conversation about Google’s AI Overviews goes beyond its legal implications. Google asserts that its AI Overviews are a part of a wider initiative to retain a “healthy ecosystem” for online content. Erickson stressed that the idea wasn’t to shadow publishers but to create a symbiotic relationship with them, where both can flourish in harmony. On that front, he articulated, “We want to be able to provide [summaries], too, while at the same time, driving people back to original, valuable content.”
However, the not-so-harmonious impact of AI summaries on referral traffic to many websites can’t be ignored. Publishers are feeling the heat as they rely on search engines to keep attracting readers and managing ad revenue.
The surge of AI in how we gain access to information is revolutionising the space. Consequently, striving to find equilibrium between tech innovation and just attribution of content becomes inevitable. And it looks like Google is committed to finding this balance. But, the question remains whether this can indeed be accomplished. Time will tell.
Find more about this ongoing story at The Verge.
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