Information overload: It's been happening for a while, and is about to accelerate faster as we move to more automated content generation.
It used to be way easier: The only news and information you'd hear was from travellers arriving at your village. Newspapers arrived, then, radio and TV, and suddenly we've got news from all around the world. This news was filtered by editors.
The Internet gave individuals a voice and everyone became a publisher. The search engines helped us find those voices in the throng of potential overload as consumers would sit for hours "surfing the Net."
Social media intercepted that by "connecting" like-minded people with their topics of interest. Information overload accelerated as soon there were platforms allowing individuals to connect with anyone in the world. All have algorithms to deliver content it (the owners and shareholders) thinks we'll like and earn them more money.
Along comes Machine Learning and GPT-like tools rolling out faster than a snowball melting in the Caribbean.
These tools will enable everyone to create content at an unprecedented rate.
My point is that GPT content will become so prolific that it's going to be impossible to consume. Total content overload.
We're, potentially, going to come around to requiring a new combination of search capability coupled with content filtering. You can't cover it all with human editors, it's going to have to be automated.
GPT-tools will need to provide good levels of filtering, but, importantly, not based upon algorithms that any one company chooses to control and to deliver based upon their advertisers and sponsors. The machines will continue to decide what we see, and when we see it.
From a business point of view, it's all got to be paid for, and I wonder how GPT-like tools will be monetized. Could subscriptions reduce the potential volumes of content? Could advertising provide some income?
I expect these questions are being asked and experimented with right now by the GPT-tools and their owners.
The answers to that are probably not yet known what will and won't work, however, it will play a part in how much information overload accelerates.
We also need to think about where this content originates. The easy answer to that is the original writers and original content creators, and how will they be recompensed for their work: What incentive is there for them to create more new content?
And, finally, could this automated content end up re-writing itself to end up with blandness and a lack of creativity by constantly regurgitating it's own content.
There are still many, many questions to be answered, but one i think is a big problem is information overload, however it's paid for.
