SEO will pillage the commons.

My personal conspiracy theory (not sure if I actually believe this yet):

The idea that people would use generative AI to make SEO easier (and thus make search engine results worse) was not an unfortunate side effect of generative AI, it was the entire purpose. It’s no coincidence that OpenAI teamed up with Google’s biggest rival in search engines; we’re now seeing an arms race between tech giants using spambot generators to overwhelm the enemy’s filters.

The decision to make chatGPT public was not about concern for openness (if it was they would have made the earlier versions of GPT public too), it’s more that they had a business partner lined up and Google search had become enshittified enough that they thought they could pull off a successful “disruption”.

update: Verdon is now accusing another AI researcher of exposing him: https://twitter.com/GillVerd/status/1730796306535514472

I highly suspect the voice analysis thing was just to confirm what they already knew, otherwise it would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.

People on twitter have been speculating that someone who knew him simply ratted him out.