Ben Werdmuller has a good post today about returning to the distributed publishing roots of the web and thinking about how technology should redistribute wealth and power to many people:
It starts with software designed for people rather than for capital. The web once thrived on protocols instead of platforms — email, RSS, blogs, personal websites — before closed networks turned users into data sources. We are now seeing efforts to return to that ethos.
There is a lot that I love in Ben’s post. I also think it captures some frustration toward AI from some open web proponents. That’s not an opinion I agree with, though. For example, this part in Ben’s post:
Even the productivity gains that are being realized through use of AI tools are benefiting a small number of wealthy companies rather than individuals. This is the exact opposite of the power redistribution that led to so many people seeing such promise in the web.
That doesn’t ring true to me. I expect AI is benefiting a lot of tiny companies of only one or two people who are hardly wealthy, maybe even barely profitable.
AI does have the potential for harm. Let’s not gloss over that. But at its best AI can improve education, making all the world’s knowledge more accessible to more people. It could help people who aren’t fluent in English communicate better with their peers across the world. I don’t think the open web and AI are at odds.
