As AI spills everywhere with quick answers, research finds that the internet’s soul is dying
A study from UC Riverside highlights the diminishing emotional and experiential depth of the internet as reliance on AI for answers increases. Researchers found that while human-written content incorporates logic, authority, and emotion, AI responses predominantly rely on logic alone. This shift raises concerns about the loss of nuanced human perspectives in online discourse.
- ▪The study compares AI responses to traditional web searches on subjective questions.
- ▪Researchers found that human-written blogs utilize logos, ethos, and pathos, while AI relies mainly on logos.
- ▪The findings suggest that AI-powered search results lack the nuances of human experience.
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A new collaborative study by UC Riverside computer and social scientists has found that as people increasingly rely on AI for answers, the internet risks losing the very thing that made it interesting in the first place: human emotion, lived experience, and messy, opinionated thinking. The study compared how AI systems like ChatGPT and Gemini respond to subjective questions versus traditional web searches. The researchers asked both AI and web search engines opinion-heavy questions, such as whether governments should ban fossil-fuel cars or whether the US healthcare system needs reform, and analyzed the reasoning behind each response.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Digital Trends.
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