Friday January 2, 2026; 9:47 AM EST
I still use Google. And I like the AI response they put at the top of the page, even though I get that it's bad for the web. Maybe there's a position for a web-only search engine. One where my writing has a chance of being seen by interested parties, rather than being converted to slurry to be fed to consumers as one would get a tasty hot dog from a NYC street vendor. Another level of processing. If I recall correctly one of the browsers is saying they're not using AI at all. But this would be different, it would be for search, not the browser. #- But Google, if you want to be fair about it, there should be a permalink for the AI-generated answers. This is something none of the AI vendors seem to be able to do. If so, I wonder why? #
- I just tried looking up "Regular Medicare" on Google, I was looking for an official page and ended up using the Medicare.gov one. But I could have decided the Google synopsis was the best. No way that I can see to use that as a link. #
- Maybe we should all start thinking about how we would like the new post-AI web to work? #
- I am trying to reach the well-known political pundits to tell them we don't have to accept the web the billionaires give us. The costs are very low, their money doesn't help them as much as you might think, because they have different concerns from the ones you (writer) and I (developer) have. I don't care about revenue (disclaimer that doesn't mean everything will be free and there won't be a business model, it just isn't the reason I'm doing the work). This is my way of giving back, the area I have the greatest leverage. I always argued that Bill Gates who kept saying in the 90s he was going to be a scrappy competitor now and give away his wealth when he retired. He is doing that btw, but I thought man you're never going to have the leverage you have now. Your money as a way to end famine or fight the climate crisis is nothing compared to the power you had when you had the dominant operating system in a time of great transition. You could, I argued, make the web a breakthrough for self-government, so we could systematically solve those problems with the resources of the United States, not just the resources of the world's richest man. That possibility really was within reach, I believed then and still do now. #
- I made the choice Bill didn't and it worked. We were able to build something amazing, only to see it broken down into that slurry I mentioned at the top of the page. #
- I love AI, I don't want to go back. But I also have big plans for human thinkers and developers -- writers, using the technology we never got a chance to develop while we were busy being dominated by Larry and Sergey, Zuckerberg, the Twitter founders, et al. #
- As I said on Bluesky today, we're going to insist this time that the political punditry get involved, assuming they are serious about saving what's left of our democracy.#