Re: Fascinating article on how AI is driving change in SEO, categories of AI and the Law of Accelerating Returns

Posted by Robert Wall on Jun 05, 2016; 9:22pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Fascinating-article-on-how-AI-is-driving-change-in-SEO-categories-of-AI-and-the-Law-of-Accelerating-s-tp7587533p7587534.html

Hi Tom,

Interesting article about Google and their foray [actually a Blitzkrieg, as they are buying up all of the brain trust in this area] into the world of machine learning presumably to improve the search customer experience.  Could their efforts actually have unintended consequences for both the search customer and the marketing efforts of the website owners? It is interesting to consider. For example, for the former case, Google picking WebMD as the paragon website for the healthcare industry flies in the face of my own experience and, say, this New York Times Magazine article: A Prescription for Fear (Feb 2011).  Will this actually make WebMD the de facto paragon in the minds of the searchers?  For the latter, successful web marketing becomes increasingly subject to the latest Google search algorithms instead of the previously more expert in-house marketing departments. Of course, this is the nature of SEO--to game the algorithms to attract better rankings.  But, it seems those in-house marketing departments will need to up their game:

In other ways, things are a bit harder. The field of SEO will continue to become extremely technical. Analytics and big data are the order of the day, and any SEO that isn’t familiar with these approaches has a lot of catching up to do. Those of you who have these skills can look forward to a big payday.

Also, with respect to those charts anticipating exponential growth for AGI technology--even eclipsing human intelligence by mid-century--there is much reasoning to see this as overly optimistic [see, for example, Hubert Dreyfus' critique of Good Old Fashion AI: "What Computers Can't Do"].  These charts kind of remind me of the "ultraviolet catastrophe" around the end of the 19th century. There are physical limitations that may well tamp progress and keep it to ANI.  With respect to AGI, there have been some pointed challenges to this "Law of Accelerating Returns."

On this point, I thought this article in AEON titled "Creative Blocks: The very laws of physics imply that artificial intelligence must be possible. What’s holding us up? (Oct 2012)" is on point concerning the philosophical and epistemological road blocks.  This one, titled "Where do minds belong? (Mar 2016)" discusses the technological roadblocks in an insightful, highly speculative, but entertaining manner.

Nonetheless, this whole discussion is quite intriguing, no matter your stance, hopes, or fears. 😎

Cheers,

Robert

On Sat, Jun 4, 2016 at 4:26 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:

See http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/04/artificial-intelligence-is-changing-seo-faster-than-you-think/?ncid=tcdaily 

Among other points: "...why doing regression analysis over every site, without having the context of the search result that it is in, is supremely flawed."

TJ

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