Yes, David, Internet search is highly biased and controlled by a few. It can be better

David Ho @_david_ho_ Anyone else notice that search doesn’t really work anymore? It used to be great. https://pic.x.com/8ip2boegma
Replying to @_david_ho_


In the 26 years of the Internet Foundation, I have seen the Internet as a whole get worse. The terms I mostly use for myself are like “co-opted”, “fiddled” “manipulated”, “gamed”, “biased”.

True random sampling would help. Rather than “take what we want to give you”, Google and others can be “stewards of human knowledge”. And required to make it open. Or forced to divest that global service to open and verifiable systems, not under the control of a few in one company, or one country.

I would much rather have the option to read 100 random results from a query like “global issues” that supposedly has 39.2 Million entries, but you can only access a hundred and it is guaranteed to be “co-opted”, “fiddled” “manipulated”, “gamed”, “biased”.

It is “search and retrieval of all knowledge, in all human languages”.  Not “we’ll take your prompt and will give you what we want to, for our purposes”

A complete and accessible index of what is on the Internet, not ad generation optimized for a few people in a few division of a large corporation that does not even use its own best methods or share internally.

We need a complete and open corpus, in accessible form, containing all that is shared.  Not a tiny few now building a closed system for feeding free Internet content to anyone working with “AIs” and no rules or oversight, no recourse for society or individuals or most countries.

Try saying the name of 8.1 Billion humans, one each second.  It will take you 250 years. Things are that large and that serious. Literally the future of all humans, and the new AI species is at stake. I do not want Google and its ilk to be hidden dictators. They simply do not care.

Filed as (Yes, David, Internet search is highly biased and controlled by a few. It can be better.)

 Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
Richard K Collins

About: Richard K Collins

Director, The Internet Foundation Studying formation and optimized collaboration of global communities. Applying the Internet to solve global problems and build sustainable communities. Internet policies, standards and best practices.


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