Content Manipulation in the Age of AI

Now that we've got all these AI-based search engines that are trained on data from the internet, companies are realizing they can manipulate it at scale to make sure their content shows up in the AI search results. This is another lesson in the enshittification of the internet...

TECHNOLOGY

Justin Kendall

6/19/20262 min read

I've been doing some listening through 404Media's podcast and came across this fantastic gem:

"Companies Are Using Reddit to Manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI Search" - https://www.404media.co/companies-are-using-reddit-to-manipulate-chatgpt-and-google-ai-search/

The long story short is as follows:

Back in 2024, Google struck a deal with Reddit to be able to train its AIs on Reddit's content - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-reddit-60-million-deal-ai-training/
Also back in 2024, OpenAI struck a deal with Reddit to be able to train its AIs on Reddit's content - https://redditinc.com/news/reddit-and-oai-partner

So now, because all of these various internet websites/tech companies are striking deals with AI providers for training data, we have a new thing out there called "AI Engine Optimization", where companies that want to sell you things are finding all of the different ways to make sure the content they want you to have is the content the AI serves up. Because, in this case, Reddit posts directly feed into AI search results, companies are going out and posing as real people and filling Reddit with posts that specifically name their company and are titled in such a way that the AI search results are likeliest to pick it up.

So instead of reading content created by actual everyday humans like you expect, you get to wade through a giant pile of corporate advertising instead, where you aren't even the target of the post, the AI engine is the target of the post.

Just remember folks, putting content on the web is ridiculously easy at this point, and there are a million unscrupulous businesses out there making sure that it's as terrible an experience as they can get away with making money on, regardless of whether it's true or not or what effect it has on you. So the next time you see that AI answer pop up, it's in your best interest to go look at all of the underlying links to websites it says the answer is based on and read them yourself so you can understand who is feeding this information to you. Which, you know, kinda defeats the purpose of having the AI-generated answers in the first place.

It'll be a hell of a day when the bubble bursts.