Blog 2: Crafting Arguments

Google AI overview’s impact on the news industry.

News Article:
Publishers fear AI summaries are hitting online traffic

ㅤㅤThis article talks about the impacts of the AI overview that google shows at the top of the screen when you do a search. Google’s argument is that their overview is helping websites gain more attention. The first premise is that the AI overview is allowing people to search more and ask more complex questions. The second premise is that this rise in searches and complexity is giving more chances for a website to get clicked on. The third premise is that with more chances for a website to get clicked on, there are more quality clicks (clicks on a site that don’t leave quickly) than a year ago. Google’s conclusion is that the AI overview is causing more clicks and helping the news industry.

ㅤㅤThese premises fall flat in the second premise. The first rebuttal premise is that AI being used does not necessarily make people search more complicated things, just changes how they search it. The second rebuttal premise is that most users that see the AI overview will not continue to look past it to the sites that it offers or the sites below the overview. The original argument relies on a red herring fallacy, just because there are more chances for a site to be clicked on, doesn’t mean the amount of clicks goes up. AI overview is making users not dig deeper into their search, making it harder for a site to get a click. These answers could also make the search end up taking longer if they end up realizing the answer AI gave was incorrect.

ㅤㅤThe first premise for my alternative argument is that the AI overview is summarizing articles/news. The second premise is that a summary reduces the desire or need to click into the source of information. The third premise is that less clicks takes away profit from the sites publishing the news. The fourth premise is that losing this much profit will negatively impact the news industry, making news article writers not make as much money for their work. The conclusion is that AI overview is harming the news industry, taking away profit from the authors of articles and newspapers.

ㅤㅤI think that Google’s AI overview can be helpful, and it can help you have some context before digging deeper into your search. However, it is a slippery slope that a lot of people including myself have fallen into, accepting an answer without further research, and not clicking on the site/s that the information stems from. This technology should be used very carefully.