Issue #24. Not like the TV show

On today’s quest:

— Why it matters for AI that search is getting worse
— Track changes for ChatGPT (!!!)
— AI in universities and award-winning books

You’re not imagining it. Search results have gotten worse

“ReadWrite” reports that a new study of Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo over the last year found that more spam is showing up in search results than a year ago, particularly in searches for products that reward affiliate marketers. For example, “only a small portion of product reviews on the web use affiliate marketing, but the majority of all search results do.” Companies appear to be trying to fix the problem, and they sometimes make progress, but the trajectory is toward more spam.

I consider this an AI story for a couple of reasons:

First, some of the spam flooding the internet and vying for search placement is now generated by AI and is likely using AI for search engine optimization. This will only get worse.

Second, as a reader pointed out recently, a “Futurism” headline read, “AI Loses Its Mind After Being Trained on AI-Generated Data.” It seems large language models trained on AI-generated content have problems with stability. They need human-written content for training. So not only is it a problem that they’re encountering more AI-content on the open web, but every spam site that inches up in search rankings replaces a higher quality site, which could drive a lot of good sites out of business or to at least cut back on creating web content. This could create a downward spiral, leading to the dominance of even more AI-generated content.

AI searches consume more energy than Google searches, so I try to keep going to Google first. But more and more, I find myself going to ChatGPT first for low-stakes searches such as “Is there a name for a fancy condo, like the way we call a fancy house a mansion?” Answer: “penthouse” [if it’s on the top floor], “luxury condo,” or “high-end condominium.”*

FURTHER … just as I was getting ready to publish this, I saw an article from “404 Media” saying that “Google News is boosting garbage AI-generated articles.”

Tip: Track Changes for ChatGPT

I recently watched the first session of Erin Servais’ AI for Editors course and learned about a Chrome plug-in that adds a track changes layer to ChatGPT called EditGPT. It looks really useful!

Here’s a screenshot from the product page:

One thing I discovered as I tested it is that you don't need to accept the changes you want. You can just reject the ones you don't want, turn off "show markup," and copy the text. That speeds things up quite a bit.

Tip: Free AI for Editors Q&A

If you liked that EditGPT tip, sign up for Erin Servais’ free Q&A happening Tuesday, January 23.

Here are some of the questions already submitted:

• Are copyeditor jobs at risk because of AI? What can copyeditors do to protect their employability?

• Can editors trust AI’s accuracy?

• If an editor is on a tight deadline, what is the most effective way to combine traditional methods with AI to produce a clean, fact-checked piece?

News

OpenAI announces first partnership with a university

According to CNBC, “starting in February, Arizona State University will have full access to ChatGPT Enterprise and plans to use it for coursework, tutoring, research and more. [They plan] to build a personalized AI tutor for students, allow students to create AI avatars for study help, and broaden the university’s prompt engineering course.”

Japan literary laureate unashamed about using ChatGPT

Japanese author Rie Kudan is an AI enthusiast and openly admitted that about five percent of the text in her novel “Sympathy Tower Tokyo” is directly from ChatGPT. What makes this so surprising is that the novel just won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, with one judge describing it as “almost flawless” and “universally enjoyable.” — Japan Today

What is AI sidequest?

Using AI isn’t my main job, and it probably isn’t yours either. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and Grammar Girl is my main gig, but I haven’t seen a technology this transformative since the development of the internet, and I want to learn about it. I bet you do too.

So here we are! Sidequesting together.

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^{*  Oddly, I used to live in a condo on the second-to-top floor that was called a “penthouse.” It turned out the top floor was added after the building was constructed, and I think the people on my floor at the time fought to keep the “penthouse” designation because of the perceived value. Plus, the condos on our floor had higher ceilings than those on any other floor, so they were arguably extra nice. Still, we thought it was funny and weird.}

^{Written by a human.}