Via Nieman, a sharp insight into the current online situation where most of the writing AND reading is done by bots, crowding out the insignificant wetware.
I don’t think it’s a technical innovation but it could give us more clarity.
= = = = = START QUOTE:
The Economist is testing new ways of structuring content to be read solely by agents as AI engines increasingly surface and summarize news.
The bet is that discovery won’t start on homepages or even in search boxes, but with AI intermediaries acting on a user’s behalf. … Preparing for a world with two versions of the web — one optimized for rich, human reading experiences, and another where agents want clear structure, questions and answers, ideally text, not carousels and feature art.
= = = = = END QUOTE.
Technically the split is already here. The web follows a VERY old practice, starting with the black and the red in church texts. The black is what the priest says, the red is stage directions for the priest to put on different clothes, pick up the wafer, start a hymn, etc.
Electronic systems often have black and red. Power grids, phone systems, TV and radio broadcasts have a carrier and a subcarrier. The carrier is what you see and hear. The subcarrier may be music, weather information, metadata for power substations or phone exchanges.
On the web the red is talking to search engines, telling the browser to change fonts or start music, or supplying adaptive text for ADA purposes. I’ve been writing subcarrier for the last six months.
The Economist seems to be bringing the red subcarrier up to the level of a separate black channel. In the radio analogy, the hidden bot channel is elevated to a new set of call letters aimed at a different audience. The same studio hosts a classical station for elites and a country station for peasants.
= = = = =
Well, I got carried away with this subject for some reason. There are really three colors. I’ll use red for the pure stage directions telling the browser how to handle this scene; black for the regular peasant text; and green for the special elite text.
Here’s one HTML page from current courseware. The red is the pure directions to the browser. Black is the part visible to the yokels. Green is the special part for my elites, who are the blind students using narrators. In the Economist example, green would be for the AI bots who are analyzing the page.
The GIF runs through red then black then green, instructions then peasants then elites.
Here’s what it looks like in an actual browser. The stage is divided, a picture is draped over the upper part and the visible peasant text in the lower. This is only a screenshot so you can’t access the elite narration.
Polistra's Mill 