Is the Digital World About to Make a U-Turn?
?? "The only way to protect data is to keep it off the web."
?? By now you know, we like to propose content that unfolds as you read the text. This time is no different.
?? It seems that the recent change of rules within the world of Twitter was initiated by generative AI itself! This could lead to profound transformations in the World Wide Web as we know it today.
?? Some even argue that we could soon see the emergence of closed systems, disconnected from the Internet.
?? Let's get there step by step.
?? Meanwhile, if you haven't had a chance to do so yet, read the Tweet in which Elon Musk announces a "temporary limit" to the use of Twitter: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675187969420828672?s=12
?? You see, up to now, generative AI has been understood as that technology capable of creating texts and images from a request made in natural language. All of this can represent a threat or, as we prefer to say, a "disruption" for many areas of life.
? The world is asking questions, for example, about how to manage copyright or how to truly assess a student in their educational journey, which is still largely made up of exams and written texts. In a historical era where any digital content can be generated without technical skills or specific knowledge, other than the ability to express oneself in his mother language, how do we adapt millennia-old concepts and habits?
?? We've said it many times, this is one of the tasks that Recomb has taken on and, literally, "we will see".
?? In this scenario, however, only a small part of the observers is considering another type of phenomenon and use. Generative AI, as you are perhaps realizing thanks to our content, has potentials that go far beyond writing texts or generating images.
?? If you think about it, any command can be expressed vocally, even very complex commands from a technical point of view such as data scraping.
??? The term "data scraping" may not be immediately clear. Better explain. It's a process in which an application extracts valuable information from a website.
Basically, you train a bot to read everything interesting on a website and catalog it for various uses.
?? Let's make a very practical example.
?? Through data scraping, we could quickly find out what products an e-commerce site sells, at what price, with what reviews and images. We could base an entire business strategy starting from "what others are doing". Interesting, right?
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?? Well, imagine this process within a social network (here we are back at Twitter) and let's all ask ourselves a question. What is the main source of income for a social network?
?? Obviously, advertising!
And why does a marketer buy advertising space on a social network?
Two reasons: to reach their target on one hand, and to do so through the analysis of data relating to the behavior of that target within that microcosm (the social network).
?? In essence, social networks had the huge advantage of being the only ones knowing what was happening under their roof. To obtain this information, companies or entities had to pay, lavishly, for access to their systems. Now all this can be obtained simply by asking the right question to the right web tool!
?? In his tweet, Musk seems to want to counter these automatic systems that read and scan everything public on Twitter, and that are seriously threatening the business related to the sale of data that these systems are simply "scraping away". Many see in this phenomenon the beginning of a radical transformation of the web as we know it today: from an open and hyperconnected system to more closed and "entry-limited" systems.
?? But let's return to data scraping. You might be wondering: "How much do these platforms cost and how difficult are they to use?"
?? The answer is "very little" to both questions.
?? Discover it by yourself.
At Recomb, we like to explain our vision, but we are convinced that the only way to "learn" is to "do". So we make your task easier by providing you with some useful links to a deep dive that we suggest you do on your own.
?? Here are three, we've tested many others, but we don't want you to spend the entire day on it:
Have fun!