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Smartphones have changed how we connect, work, and entertain ourselves, but they might also be silently reshaping our closest relationships. A recent study titled ‘Impact of Smartphones on Parent-Child Relationships’ sheds light on a growing concern: the excessive use of smartphones is creating barriers between parents and children in India. The sixth edition of the vivo Switch Off survey, conducted in collaboration with CyberMedia Research (CMR), highlights how technology, while indispensable, has become a source of conflict in family dynamics. The findings are a stark reminder of the need for balance in a world increasingly dominated by screens. <h2>Children are more aware of smartphone impact </h2> One surprising revelation from the study is that children appear more aware of the negative impact of <keyword id="24400365" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="excessive-smartphone-use" source="keywords">excessive smartphone use</keyword> than their parents. About 69% of children acknowledged that smartphone overuse has led to conflicts with their parents, and an overwhelming 94% suggested that their ideal phone for parents should focus on basic features like calling, messaging, and a camera—stripping away apps for entertainment, gaming, or social media. Children also demonstrated a desire for collective change: 66% said they would give up social media if their peers did the same, while over 90% wished that some popular social media platforms had never been created. <h2>Parents spend more time on their phones than children </h2> While 75% of parents worry about their children’s ability to build meaningful relationships, the irony is evident. Many parents overlook how their own smartphone habits are affecting their bond with their kids. On average, parents spend more than five hours daily on their phones, compared to four hours for children. A striking 73% of parents admit that their device use has caused friction at home. Even during significant moments like family vacations or celebrations, both groups confess to using their phones, underscoring how deeply ingrained this habit has become. <h2>Yearning for stronger bonds </h2> Despite the challenges, there’s a shared longing for deeper connections. About 76% of children and 84% of parents expressed a wish to strengthen their relationships through meaningful family time, free from digital distractions. Both groups are exploring solutions such as creating “phone-free” zones at home and setting mutual screen-time limits. One-third of children believe the world would be better off without certain apps, reflecting their frustration with the digital environment they’ve grown up in. Yet, they also see hope in collective action—if their families and friends embrace healthier smartphone habits, they’re ready to follow suit. <h2>Expert opinion </h2> Highlighting the issue, Riddhi Doshi Patel, a child psychologist and parenting counsellor, noted, “Excessive smartphone use is silently eroding emotional bonds between parents and children. Campaigns promoting mindful tech use aren’t just helpful; they’re transformative. They can foster genuine connection and create homes where relationships flourish beyond screens.” To address these challenges, vivo has collaborated with experts like Catherine Price, author of How to Break Up with Your Phone, and Riddhi Doshi Patel to offer practical advice. Their guidance includes actionable steps like setting screen-time boundaries, creating phone-free zones, and prioritising face-to-face interactions. What are your thoughts on this growing issue? Can families bridge the digital divide, or is it a price we’ll continue to pay for staying connected?

Parents spend more time on their smartphones than children and this might be straining relationships, new study suggests

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Large companies like Disney and Uber have arbitration clauses in their Terms of Use.</li><li>Arbitration is when a neutral third party settles a dispute instead of a jury trial.</li></ul>Companies are using a simple strategy to avoid courtroom litigation when disaster strikes: the fine print.Terms and conditions have become a ubiquitous part of life for many people, from purchasing concert tickets to applying for a credit card. The legal agreement between businesses and their customers spells out both parties' responsibilities under a contractual relationship.That legal agreement can include an <a target="_blank" class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-plaintiffs-law-firms-bring-mass-arbitration-cases-class-actions-2021-11">arbitration clause</a> that removes a customer's right to sue a company when things go wrong — whether the customer knows it or not. Instead, they can be forced to use a neutral third party to settle a dispute instead of a jury at trial.In some cases, companies are using infinite arbitration clauses, which can extend to individuals beyond the original contractual parties, requiring all disputes to be settled out of the courtroom, and can be enforceable even after terminating a service."Infinite clauses stretch to the horizon and last forever. They are less a contractual provision and more a kind of arbitration servitude," David Horton, a professor at the University of California, Davis, School of Law, wrote in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.It's a near-century-old practice that some legal experts say should be modernized for the digital age.<h2 id="27cb7a2c-c011-4afd-9917-00dc1588da6c">The Disney case</h2>In the case of large companies, arbitration clauses included in one service can often apply to any service the company offers.This scenario gained attention earlier this year after a New York State man filed a <a target="_blank" class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-wrongful-death-lawsuit-theme-park-2024-8">wrongful-death lawsuit against Disney</a> and a restaurant operator who runs a pub at Disney Springs. Disney does not own the restaurant.Jeffrey Piccolo's lawsuit said his wife, Kanokporn Tangsuan, died in October 2023 from a "severe acute allergic reaction" after dining at Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant, where they asked a staff member on "numerous occasions" if allergen-free options were available. The staff member assured them the restaurant did, but Tangsuan collapsed inside Planet Hollywood later that night and was transported to a local hospital, according to the complaint.A medical examiner's investigation determined she died due to "anaphylaxis due to elevated levels of dairy and nut in her system."<div type="image" title="A photo of a sign on a water tower with the Disney Springs logo" height="1704" width="2560" msid="115384767" hostid="261" sizebytes="276990"></div>In response, Disney filed a motion to compel arbitration, arguing that Piccolo could not sue the company because he had agreed to its Terms of Use when signing up for a free Disney+ trial years earlier and again when purchasing tickets to its theme park. Disney quickly found itself in a <a target="_blank" class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-wrongful-death-lawsuit-legal-argument-pr-nightmare-2024-8">PR nightmare</a> as people online called the move "very dystopian" and urged users to cancel their Disney+ subscriptions in retaliation.After the criticism, Disney reversed course and dropped its motion to compel arbitration. The case is pending in the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in Orange County, Florida."At Disney, we strive to put humanity above all other considerations. With such unique circumstances as the ones in this case, we believe this situation warrants a sensitive approach to expedite a resolution for the family who have experienced such a painful loss," Josh D'Amaro, the chairman of Disney Experiences, said in a statement.Although Disney relented, Piccolo isn't the only one to get caught up in the fine print, and he likely won't be the last.Lawyers and legal experts who spoke to Business Insider said there is little consumers can do to avoid arbitration clauses in an era when signing contracts often happens with the tap of a finger."I think the only thing we can do is opt out of the internet," Joseph Cammarata, a partner at Chaikin, Sherman, Cammarata &amp; Siegel, P.C. in Washington DC, told Business Insider.<h2 id="7db68ead-3086-4a47-adf0-1c0cf75edcf6">Large companies use arbitration to avoid damaging their reputations in a public trial</h2><div type="image" title="Preview of John and Georgia McGinty alongside the crashed Uber vehicle." height="3264" width="2962" msid="115384769" hostid="261" sizebytes="435138"></div>Like Disney, Uber made headlines this year for a 2023 lawsuit filed by Georgia and John McGinty in the Superior Court of New Jersey.In a September court filing, the couple said they were riding in an Uber in March 2022 when the driver ran a red light and crashed into another vehicle. The court filing said Georgia sustained multiple injuries, including rib, cervical, and lumbar spine fractures. She also experienced damage to her abdominal wall, pelvic floor, and a protruding hernia.John sustained "severe" fractures to his left arm and wrist and a fractured sternum, according to the lawsuit.Uber responded by filing a motion to compel arbitration, which that court denied. However, Uber appealed, and New Jersey's appellate division sided with the company, which said the McGinty's could not have a courtroom trial because Georgia agreed to its Terms of Use in 2022 for an unrelated Uber Eats order. The couple pushed back, saying their underage daughter made that order and have filed an appeal."While the plaintiffs continue to tell the press that it was their daughter who ordered Uber Eats and accepted the Terms of Use, it's worth noting that in court they could only 'surmise' that that was the case but could not recall whether their daughter ordered food independently or if Georgia assisted," an Uber spokesperson said in a statement.<div type="image" title="Georgia McGinty, who was involved in an Uber car crash." height="3024" width="4032" msid="115384772" hostid="261" sizebytes="674730"></div>Stacey Lee, a professor of law and ethics at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, told BI that consumers are increasingly running into arbitration clauses, but how businesses use them isn't necessarily new."It has always been the default for businesses to want to go to arbitration for a number of reasons," Lee said."You're not going to have a class action lawsuit, you're not going to have it plastered on top of the front page, there's limited discovery, and businesses have a little more control over who the arbitrators are," she said.Arbitration usually has three arbitrators selected from the Arbitration Association of America. They're often business professionals with experience in a specific field."Their knowledge of the customs and norms of the industry is very different than a judge's, and because they're on the business side, they have a tendency to agree more with the business interpretations of how things work," Lee said.Cammarata said companies know juries might be less sympathetic to their arguments."They want to limit public accountability and responsibility," he said. "A jury may listen and say, 'Uber, are you kidding me?'"However, arbitration isn't inherently anti-consumer or unfair to the average person. Compared to courtroom litigation, arbitration can cost less money and be a quicker process. People also can request an appeal in arbitration, but it's not the same as a courtroom trial, where they would have the right to do so.This private form of settling legal disputes arose with the Federal Arbitration Act in 1925, making it nearly 100 years old. John Carpenter, a partner at the California-based law firm Carpenter &amp; Zuckerman, said the arbitration clause is due for an update."The problem is we're applying a statute that goes back to 1925 to 2024," Carpenter said, "It's an entirely different world. The world we live in now wasn't even conceivable in 1925."Carpenter said that arbitration was generally used to determine one-on-one agreements, but now "it's being used digitally in terms of use agreements and essentially contracting away an entire branch of government with a click."<h2 id="dcbb6564-3ff6-4ae5-98ab-600c97fc4c6e">How consumers protect themselves from arbitration clauses</h2>Cammarata said one way consumers can navigate arbitration is to check if a company's terms of use has an opt-out clause. That, however, relies on consumers reading through the businesses' Terms of Use, which are often lengthy and written in legal jargon."First of all, they haven't read it, so they don't even know that they agreed to arbitration, let alone to opt out," he said.Lee said that while courts tend to be critical of arbitration clauses in employment agreements, they're less so regarding things like streaming services or rideshare apps."Increasingly, courts are like, 'You can read. You scroll through and click yes. It is now your responsibility," Lee said. "You can walk away from the service, and it doesn't affect your life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness."John said he believes courts need to reexamine the Federal Arbitration Act."It's going to require legislative action to take a look at this," he said.

How century-old arbitration laws are failing consumers in the digital age

Imagine sitting across from an AI interviewer, answering questions about your life, preferences, and opinions for two hours. When the session ends, the AI confidently declares it can replicate your personality — answering questions, making decisions, and reacting to situations just like you would. A team of researchers from <keyword id="20239252" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Google-DeepMind" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Google DeepMind" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Google DeepMind">Google DeepMind</keyword>, along with computer scientists and sociologists, has developed a groundbreaking AI system capable of creating eerily accurate simulations of individual personalities, blurring the line between technology and identity. This innovative system uses artificial intelligence to analyse responses in real-time, generating what the researchers call “personality agents.” While the concept might conjure up images of clones or digital twins, the team is quick to point out that their aim is far less dystopian. Instead, they see it as a tool to revolutionise sociology and research, making it faster, cheaper, and more precise to study how people think and feel about the world around them. The process begins with a two-hour interview conducted by a conversational AI through an interface designed to be intuitive and engaging. A friendly 2D sprite represents the AI interviewer, its white circle pulsating as it speaks. When it’s the participant’s turn, the sprite morphs into a microphone icon, capturing their responses while a progress bar keeps track of the session. It’s an almost game-like experience, but beneath the surface, the AI is hard at work. By analysing speech patterns, preferences, and decision-making tendencies, it constructs a digital personality — a model capable of answering questions with an impressive 85% accuracy compared to the real person, as claimed by the researchers. The researchers, who interviewed 1,000 participants to train the system, are confident in its potential. They envision it as a game-changer for sociology, a field that relies heavily on surveys to understand human behaviour. Traditional surveys are time-consuming and expensive, requiring researchers to draft, distribute, and analyse them meticulously. With AI-generated <keyword id="24219225" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="personality-agents" source="keywords">personality agents</keyword>, researchers could simulate responses to different scenarios without needing to interview thousands of individuals each time. This could dramatically reduce costs while increasing the scale and precision of social research. The implications, however, extend beyond academia. The ability to simulate personalities could transform personal AI assistants, making them more intuitive and personalised. Imagine a digital assistant that truly “gets” you, anticipating your needs and preferences with uncanny accuracy. The technology could also enhance <keyword id="24219229" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="human-robot-interaction" source="keywords">human-robot interaction</keyword>, paving the way for robots that respond to emotions and situations as naturally as humans. Of course, the concept isn’t without its challenges. The ethical considerations are significant — how do we ensure consent when creating and using these digital replicas? What happens if someone uses this technology maliciously? For instance, these AI models could be weaponised in targeted advertising or political campaigns, using their deep understanding of a person’s preferences to subtly manipulate behaviour. There’s also the psychological discomfort of knowing your digital "self" could be interacting with others in ways you can’t control, potentially leading to trust issues or even emotional harm. The researchers acknowledge these concerns but emphasise their focus on transparency and ethical development. For now, they’re prioritising its use in <keyword id="24219226" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sociological-research" source="keywords">sociological research</keyword>, but the possibilities for broader applications are undeniable. Whether that future excites or unsettles you, one thing is clear: the line between human and machine is becoming increasingly blurred. The findings of this research have been published in a preprint journal and can be accessed <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2411.10109">here</a>.

Researchers have created an AI that can simulate your personality with 85% accuracy after a 2-hour chat!

India's most influential digital stars by Forbes

The United States government isn’t holding back when it comes to Big Tech, and <keyword id="19902762" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Google" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Google" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Google">Google</keyword> is squarely in its sights. After years of concern over the tech giant’s grip on the digital world, the US Justice Department (DOJ) has made a bold demand: sell your Chrome browser. The move comes amid two high-stakes antitrust trials that accuse Google of monopolistic practices. So, what’s at the heart of the government’s case, and why is Chrome a key piece of the puzzle? Let’s break it down. <h3 style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:14.0pt;margin-bottom:4.0pt;">Search, Chrome, and monopoly madness</h3>In one corner, we have the DOJ versus Google in a trial in Washington, D.C., where a judge has already ruled that Google’s search business operates as an illegal monopoly. The DOJ argues that Google’s dominance in search, bolstered by its Chrome browser, gives the company an unfair advantage, effectively locking in users and advertisers. To remedy this, the DOJ has proposed that Google sell off Chrome entirely. This drastic move, they argue, could level the playing field and restore competition to a market where Google currently reigns supreme. <h3 style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:14.0pt;margin-bottom:4.0pt;">The ad tech tug-of-war</h3>Meanwhile, in Virginia, a second trial focuses on Google’s grip on the ad tech market — the engine behind the ads you see while browsing. The government alleges that Google’s trio of advertising software products effectively monopolises the ad tech ecosystem. Publishers like News Corp and Gannett claim they’re stuck using Google’s ad tools to survive. DOJ lawyer Aaron Teitelbaum summed it up bluntly: “Google is once, twice, three times a monopolist.” The DOJ accuses Google of using its financial clout to buy out rivals and control the auction systems that determine which ads appear online. This, they say, allows Google to charge advertisers more while paying publishers less. The government wants Google to divest parts of its ad tech business to dismantle this stranglehold. <h3 style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:14.0pt;margin-bottom:4.0pt;">Google fights back</h3>Unsurprisingly, Google has a different story. The tech giant calls the government’s arguments an attempt to pick “winners and losers” in an already competitive market. “The law simply does not support what the plaintiffs are arguing in this case,” said Google’s lawyer Karen Dunn. Google also argues that the ad tech market isn’t as straightforward as the DOJ claims. The company points out that ads appear across multiple platforms — search engines, social media, and apps — and Google doesn’t dominate all of them. In fact, it says rivals like Meta, Amazon, and TikTok are gaining ground. Dunn warned that forcing Google to sell parts of its business or work with competitors would essentially amount to government interference. “This is central planning,” she said, urging the court to reject the DOJ’s proposals. <h3 style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:14.0pt;margin-bottom:4.0pt;">What’s at stake?</h3>If the court rules against Google, the implications could be seismic. The DOJ’s proposals — selling Chrome or divesting parts of Google’s ad business — would fundamentally reshape how the company operates. But don’t expect a resolution anytime soon. Presiding Judge Leonie Brinkema is expected to issue her opinion swiftly, but any decision will almost certainly be appealed, dragging the case potentially to the US Supreme Court. Even then, the question of enforcement remains murky. While the Biden administration is eager to rein in Big Tech, future administrations could change course. Whether Google will ultimately be forced to sell Chrome or parts of its ad tech business is up to the courts — and potentially years of appeals. For now, the trials highlight a growing unease with the power of tech giants like Google. For Google, the stakes couldn’t be higher. For the rest of us, these decisions will shape the future of the internet as we know it. Stay tuned — this battle is far from over.

Why does the US want Google to sell its Chrome browser?

The long-promised <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/club-penguin-died-disney-and-money-destroyed-a-community-2020-1">digital apocalypse</a> has finally arrived, and it was heralded by a blog post.Published on July 18, the post's headline sounded pretty arcane. "Google URL Shortener links will no longer be available," it declared. I know, I know — not exactly an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-cybertruck-apocalypse-inequality-2023-12">attack of alien zombies</a> from the death dimension. But the news nevertheless freaked me out. It means another swath of the web is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-childhood-internet-gone-club-penguin-neopets-webkinz-nostalgia-2024-8">about to disappear</a>.Here's the gist: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-google-killed-google-reader-2013-6">Google used to have an online service</a> that generated pithy, user-friendly versions of long, commercially unwieldy uniform resource locators — the key addresses that identify everything on the web. Shorter URLs are easier to track and better for online commerce. Google stopped shortening addresses back in 2019, but the concise URLs it had already created kept right on doing their job. Click on one and it would take you to the right webpage, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-internet-works-infrastructure-photos-2018-5#in-the-most-basic-sense-the-internets-job-is-to-carry-information-from-point-a-to-point-b-1">the way it's supposed to</a>.No more. In the <a target="_blank" href="https://developers.googleblog.com/en/google-url-shortener-links-will-no-longer-be-available/">blog post</a>, Google announced that as of next year, all of the existing shortened URLs are getting turned off. Poof. And on the web, if your URL doesn't work, you might as well not exist. You are unreachable. Without laborious renaming, everything behind those links — billions of them, a decade of digital content — will become inaccessible. Gone. Ask not for whom the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/what-is-a-404-error">404 message</a> tolls.Now, rendering a bunch of web content invisible isn't the end of days. Not by itself. The problem is, this kind of thing keeps happening. And it's getting worse. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-dead-instagram-tiktok-bereal-replaced-group-chats-messaging-2023-8">Social networks</a> go bankrupt. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-most-trusted-news-source-online-comment-sections-google-2024-6">Digital journalism sites</a> close up shop. Companies pull their online products. Links rot. Files get not found. The cloud, as wags have noted, is really just "someone else's computers." And when clouds get turned off, not even the silver lining is left to tell the tale.Maybe none of this matters much right now. But it will. The internet has become the default archive of our history and culture. And the whole thing is burning down before our eyes, like the Library of Alexandria — only worse. For the first time since people started carving letters into rocks, we're making a time with no history. We're about to enter the Digital Dark Ages.Attempts to quantify the scope of the problem are heartbreaking. <a target="_blank" href="https://harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-127/perma-scoping-and-addressing-the-problem-of-link-and-reference-rot-in-legal-citations/">Half of links in US Supreme Court decisions</a> no longer lead to the information being cited. A report in 2021 found that <a target="_blank" href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3833133">a full quarter of the more than 2.2 million hyperlinks</a> on The New York Times website were broken. Even worse, the Pew Research Center estimates that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/05/17/when-online-content-disappears/">a quarter of everything put on the web</a> from 2013 to 2023 is inaccessible — meaning almost 40% of the web as it existed in 2013 is simply not there today, a decade later.The degradation of those links wouldn't panic me so much if they hadn't replaced what came before them — if museum storerooms and dusty library stacks still served as the warehouses of our collective memory. It's not that I miss the days of wrangling with old newspapers preserved on microfiche, or trying to sweet-talk a librarian into an international interlibrary loan. I'm glad lots of old movies are streaming and many out-of-print books are only a few clicks away. But archives and databases are more than places to keep old stuff; what we save defines who we are. Today, so much of everything is only digital that when it disappears, it leaves a hole in our shared culture.Gawker is gone. So is the archive of The Awl, the beloved culture-criticism site. You can go to a library and read the entire output of long-dead newspapers like the Los Angeles Herald Examiner or New York Newsday, but God help you if you want to read old Vice articles. Shenanigans over the ownership of what used to be Paramount have resulted in the deletion of decades' worth of shows on MTV and Comedy Central.The <a target="_blank" href="https://slate.com/technology/2024/08/david-zaslav-warner-bros-discovery-culture-deleting-movies-tv-shows.html">Cartoon Network archive</a> is gone. So are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/11/these-crusaders-want-preserve-human-culture-online-their-latest-target-yahoo-groups/">Yahoo Groups</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://cinema.usc.edu/spectator/43.1/01_Rudenshiold.pdf">Yahoo Answers</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.engadget.com/imgur-to-ban-explicit-images-and-delete-uploads-not-tied-to-an-account-122537118.html">big chunks of the Imgur photo service</a>, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/dear-tumblr-banning-adult-content-wont-make-your-site-better-it-will-harm-sex">spicy parts of Tumblr</a> that got zapped in a porn purge, everything that ever happened on Friendster and the other pre-Facebook social networks, Club Penguin, Neopets, Geocities, AOL, and Prodigy. Vast swaths of video games made for obsolete systems are unplayable memories.Hard drives have a finite lifespan, and the ones the <a target="_blank" href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/music-industrys-1990s-hard-drives-like-all-hdds-are-dying/">music industry used for storage</a> in the 1990s ahead of the transition to digital are crumbling. The Department of Veterans Affairs is legally required to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-cerner-health-larry-ellison-28-billion-deadly-gamble-veterans-2024-5">preserve all medical records</a> for 75 years after the death of a vet — but it's having problems, in part because of a balky digital records system. And that's not to mention things like personal photographs, most of which now exist only on your phone, and nowhere else. Every email you sent or received in your last job, or anything a deceased relative had on their now-unusable computer? These are the things that make us us. Yet <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/search-web-email-google-streaming-online-shopping-broken-2022-4">I dare you to find them</a>.There are always brave souls out there who try to rescue scrolls from a burning library. But it's hard to rescue something that exists only in the ether. "If a library burns down, it's a tragedy, but most of the books survive elsewhere," says Mark Graham, a leading internet archivist. "But the digital world is inherently fragile and potentially ephemeral."Graham is director of the Wayback Machine, a decades-old project that seeks to collect and save digital copies of web pages, for posterity. Gawker? Yeah, they got most of it. And that Pew study I mentioned, which showed that more than a third of the recent internet had vanished? "When we redid their study using their data, we found that about two-thirds of that material was safely stored on the Wayback Machine," Graham says. "So really only a ninth is gone." The Wayback Machine automatically archives more than a billion URLs every day. It also performs constant maintenance on the hundreds of millions of links across all 320 language editions of Wikipedia, which are atrophying at a rate of 10,000 URLs a day. Most recently, Graham worked on preserving 5,000 videos from a YouTube channel run by Rohingya activists, whose people were subjected to genocide in 2017. "They asked us to archive it because YouTube regularly deletes videos from their platform," Graham says. "They don't even leave metadata up, so you don't know what was deleted." He says he got all of the videos except one, which was age-restricted.Usually, the Wayback Machine's biggest obstacle is paywalls. Most of the articles in the world's scientific journals, for example, are widely available to anyone with a university affiliation. But the articles are prohibitively expensive for the rest of us — even if our tax dollars paid for the research they describe. An archive isn't really an archive if no one can afford the entry fee.But now there's a new threat to archiving our lives: artificial intelligence. When websites don't want to let AI slurp up their content, they block a certain kind of digital crawler-bot — the same species of critter the Wayback Machine uses. "That's happened almost overnight," Graham says. AI, with its insatiable hunger for training data, can't access the sites. But neither can the preservationists. In the wake of artificial intelligence, more intelligence is going to vanish.Let's be clear: This is about more than just losing a few <a target="_blank" href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/07/to-preserve-their-work-and-drafts-of-history-journalists-take-archiving-into-their-own-hands/">news articles</a> or clips from your favorite Adult Swim cartoon. What <a target="_blank" href="http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/71216">an archive</a> is able to save, down to what formats fit in its file cabinets or data banks, literally determines what gets remembered. If you preserve, say, bank records from the 18th century but not sewing patterns, your annals are going to leave out a lot of people. Similarly, if your digital archive retains only the records of profitable businesses — because the ones that go bust wind up nuking their servers — you lose the memory of everything those deceased companies labored for. And what gets remembered about the past determines what we're able to do in the present. "Society is memory," says Marlene Manoff, who served as a senior collection strategist at MIT Libraries. "When you lose that memory, what does that mean?"Unreadable hard drives and vanishing links aren't the only threats to the historical record. Consider the selfie. Fifteen years ago, a researcher from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography named Loren McClenachan wanted to know whether commercial overfishing and environmental changes were making fish smaller. So she looked at five decades' worth of <a target="_blank" href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.01152.x">pictures of winning sportfishing catches</a> off Key West, Florida. The fishing boat company that ran the competitions, it turned out, had kept all the physical photographs, most of which had the date handwritten on the back.Armed with those artifacts, McClenachan was able to show that over the prior half-century, the sizes of prize-winning catches had declined by more than 50%. None of that data would have been available if all the fishers had kept the records of their catches on their phones. Instead we'd be subject to what's known as "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.wired.com/story/subtle-weather-shifts-might-make-climate-change-hard-to-see/">shifting baseline syndrome</a>" — the common assumption that whatever's normal today was the norm in the past, too.As the internet vanishes and we store our lives on our devices, we're actively choosing to punch huge gaps in our historical record. It's self-inflicted cultural amnesia, made worse by the fact that most of the web is in the hands of large corporations that place little value on preservation. "Over the long term, you can't preserve a digital object in its original form," says Manoff, the former MIT librarian. "But in the case of corporate ownership, the likelihood of responsible long-term stewardship of digital content in any form becomes increasingly unlikely."The Dark Ages, as historians used to call the early centuries of medieval Europe, lasted for 500 years. Our digital version may never end. A postliterate society leaves exactly as much of a mark on the world as a preliterate one. Which is to say, not much of a mark at all.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/adam-rogers">Adam Rogers</a> is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

We're about to enter the Digital Dark Ages

<keyword id="19897919" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="social-media" source="keywords">Social media</keyword> platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook have established safeguards to combat <keyword id="23571068" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="bot-accounts" source="keywords">bot accounts</keyword>, including policies and technical mechanisms. However, the effectiveness of these measures is increasingly being questioned as AI-driven bots evolve and find ways to bypass restrictions. <h2>AI bot evolution</h2>While <keyword id="21559036" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="AI-bots" source="keywords">AI bots</keyword> can serve legitimate purposes like marketing and customer service, some are designed to manipulate public discussions, incite hate speech, and spread <keyword id="19933162" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="misinformation" source="keywords">misinformation</keyword>. Research from the University of Notre Dame investigated the bot policies of platforms like LinkedIn, <keyword id="19932634" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="tiktok" source="keywords">TikTok</keyword>, and X, testing how well these platforms enforced their rules. The findings were troubling. "Despite what their policy says or the technical bot mechanisms they have, it was very easy to get a bot up and working on X. They aren't effectively enforcing their policies," said Paul Brenner, a Director at Notre Dame. Even interns, who had only a high school-level education and minimal training, were able to launch the test bots using technology that is readily available to the public, Brenner explained. Their bots were created using commonly-available AI tools such as <keyword id="19918823" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="OpenAI" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="OpenAI" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="OpenAI">OpenAI</keyword>'s GPT-4o and DALL-E 3, and the tests were run on LinkedIn, Mastodon, Reddit, TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="114283439" title="Security threats to AI models are giving rise to a new crop of startups" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>As per the tests, none of these platforms had sufficient safeguards to keep the bots out. Researchers successfully published benign test posts from bots across all platforms, with X and Reddit posing minimal challenges. While <keyword id="19911549" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="meta" source="keywords">Meta</keyword> platforms proved somewhat more challenging due to stronger enforcement mechanisms, they ultimately could still be bypassed — even by relatively inexperienced folk. <h2>Why does it matter?</h2>In India — and the rest of the world, for that matter — the rise of AI-driven bots has significant implications for public discourse, particularly in the political arena. Research has indicated that a substantial portion of misinformation circulating during electoral periods can often be traced back to automated accounts. Many experts emphasise that the pervasive influence of these accounts can negatively shape public perception and discussion, and is often used to target certain sensitive groups and stoke communal tension. As platforms struggle to keep pace with the evolving tactics of malicious bots, the need for stronger regulations becomes increasingly evident. Considering that AI is evolving at a rapid pace that makes it supremely difficult to tell bots apart from real human accounts — even for the tech-savvy — Brenner argues for US legislation that mandates platforms to identify human versus bot accounts. Similar measures are needed in India, where the lack of accountability for social media platforms allows harmful bot activity to proliferate. <h2>What needs to be done?</h2>Addressing the bot problem requires a multitude of different solutions. For starters, enhanced technology, such as more sophisticated AI detection systems, could help platforms identify and mitigate bot activity more effectively. Recent advancements in machine learning are paving the way for tools that can better analyse user behavior and detect anomalies that indicate bot activity. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="114250696" title="AI labs are fragmenting because of ego clashes and commercial pressures. It&amp;#39;s about to drive a wave of new startups." mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>However, it is almost just as necessary to educate users about identifying bots and understanding online discourse. To platforms can implement user-friendly tools that highlight potentially automated accounts, empowering users to make more informed decisions about whom to engage with. Legislation could also play a pivotal role in shaping how social media platforms handle bot accounts. By requiring transparency about bot activity and holding companies accountable for enforcement, policymakers can create an environment where genuine discourse thrives and misinformation is curtailed. In India, the proposed <keyword id="19955205" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Digital-India-Act" source="keywords">Digital India Act</keyword> could be an avenue for strengthening regulations around <keyword id="19979951" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="digital-platforms" source="keywords">digital platforms</keyword> and enhancing user safety. While platforms like X and Facebook have made strides in developing detection methods, the sophistication of AI-driven bots continues to outpace current safeguards. This situation requires urgent attention from both tech companies and policymakers to ensure a safer social media environment. The findings of this research has been published on a pre-print server and can be accessed <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.18931">here</a>.

Even high school interns were able to use common AI tools to bypass security and launch bots on X, Facebook and other social media: report

In an eyebrow-raising milestone for art and technology, a portrait of British mathematician <keyword id="20716963" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="alan-turing" source="keywords">Alan Turing</keyword>, crafted by none other than Ai-Da — the world’s first <keyword id="23883869" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="humanoid-robot-artist" source="keywords">humanoid robot artist</keyword> — has skyrocketed <keyword id="23524646" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="AI-generated-art" source="keywords">AI-generated art</keyword> into the realm of high-end auctions. The piece, aptly titled A.I. God, fetched a staggering $1,084,800 at Sotheby’s Digital Art Sale, completely blindsiding initial estimates of $180,000. Ai-Da’s robotic fingers just created history, and people are scratching their heads trying to figure out how they feel about it. <h2>Meet Ai-Da</h2>Ai-Da isn’t your average paintbrush-wielding bot. Designed to resemble a human woman complete with expressive eyes and a bob of brown hair, Ai-Da does more than pose as an artist — she acts as a philosophical commentator on the very technology that powers her. Named after Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician credited as the world’s first computer programmer, Ai-Da’s artistic journey began as a project by Aidan Meller, a modern art expert. With help from AI wizards at Oxford and Birmingham universities, Ai-Da was equipped with tech that allows her to generate artistic ideas through conversations with her human counterparts. The result is a robot that doesn’t just paint but provokes. "The key value of my work is its capacity to serve as a catalyst for dialogue about emerging technologies," Ai-Da remarked at Sotheby’s. Her Turing portrait “with muted tones and broken facial planes” seems to symbolise the caution Turing himself had raised in the 1950s about AI’s future. Turing, a code-breaking legend and early computer scientist, had foreseen both AI’s promise and its potential perils. Ai-Da’s portrayal captures that conflict, mirroring today’s conversation: is AI here to serve us, or are we unwittingly feeding our own "god"? <h2>A moment in art history</h2>With A.I. God being the first artwork by a humanoid robot ever to be sold at auction, many see this sale as the dawn of AI’s full-fledged entry into the art world. Others, however, worry this is the beginning of a dystopian trend that could devalue human-made art. For every admirer of Ai-Da’s skills, there’s a sceptic pondering what this means for artists who pour their human soul into their work. As Aidan Meller sees it, Ai-Da is the ultimate artist for our time. "The greatest artists in history grappled with their period of time," Meller said, "and Ai-Da is perfectly suited to discuss the current developments with technology and its unfolding legacy." Whether we’ll look back on this era as a golden age of innovation or as the point where humans began their creative decline is up for debate. <h2>Public reactions</h2>As A.I. God smashed records, it also smashed open a Pandora’s box of mixed reactions. Art critics and tech enthusiasts are intrigued; social media is ablaze with questions about the role of AI in traditionally human spaces. Many are captivated by Ai-Da’s sophisticated process, which involved her choosing colours, textures, and even the tone of the painting after examining Turing’s photograph. But others are alarmed. If robots can generate million-dollar art, where does that leave human creators? Or, more provocatively, what happens when robots develop their own creative ambitions? The public perception of AI art is one big contradiction. On one hand, there’s an undeniable thrill in seeing a machine paint, compose, or even converse. There’s a fascination with this powerful new tool that seems both thrilling and dangerous. On the other, people worry about the commodification of creativity. In an era where everything is data, will AI art soon be mass-produced? Will human-made art become a quaint relic, like vinyl records or typewriters? Beyond the dollars and digits, Ai-Da’s work represents a fundamental question: what is art, and who — or what — gets to create it? Meller argues that Ai-Da serves as a mirror to our modern age, where every advance in technology is double-edged, carrying both promise and pitfalls. Ai-Da’s Turing portrait has sparked a conversation that won’t die down soon. Are we witnessing the rise of a new artistic epoch, or merely the latest novelty to captivate our tech-obsessed world?

Humanoid robot Ai-Da’s portrait of computer legend Alan Turing fetches over $1 million at an art auction

Microsoft’s much-anticipated Recall feature, designed to help users retrace their <keyword id="22174840" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="digital-interactions" source="keywords">digital interactions</keyword> on Windows, has been delayed again. The feature is now set to debut for <keyword id="20184542" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Windows-Insiders" source="keywords">Windows Insiders</keyword> on Copilot+ PCs in December. Originally slated for October, the tool promises to offer a breakthrough in productivity by allowing users to revisit and replay past PC activities. <h2><keyword id="21843362" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Microsoft-Recall-feature" source="keywords">Microsoft Recall feature</keyword> delayed again </h2> Whether you need to reopen a recently used document or pick up from where you left off in an app, Recall aims to enhance workflow and ease task management. The feature, at the time of its announcement, had also raised eyebrows as people were concerned about its safety implications. Now, it is being delayed again as Microsoft needs “additional time to refine the experience” to ensure high standards of security and privacy. "We are committed to delivering a secure and trusted experience with Recall. We recently shared updates to the security and privacy architecture for Recall in a Windows Blog post. To ensure we deliver on these important updates, we’re taking additional time to refine the experience before previewing it with Windows Insiders. Originally planned for October, Recall will now be available for preview with Windows Insiders on Copilot+ PCs by December," the company said in a blog post update. As mentioned already, Recall’s ability to log and store user activity raises questions about data security. While Microsoft has assured users that the feature will be built around robust security measures, this delay is likely to involve fine-tuning such safeguards to comply with privacy expectations and regulations. <h2>What is the Recall feature? </h2> Microsoft’s Recall feature is an ambitious addition aimed at enhancing user productivity by enabling users to retrace their steps on Windows PCs. Think of it as a digital time machine—users can revisit past activities, from re-opening documents to returning to apps where work was left incomplete. This tool is particularly useful for those who manage numerous tasks and need to streamline their workflows without manually searching for files or websites.

Microsoft is delaying the recall feature for CoPilot Plus PCs again, all we know

When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, an AI revolution of sorts began. Soon, more and more companies began investing in AI and it became the next big thing in tech. Earlier this year, reports about <keyword id="18635" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="amazon" source="Orion">Amazon</keyword> working on a <keyword id="23780159" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="smarter-Alexa" source="keywords">smarter Alexa</keyword> had surfaced and it was being said that the all-new tech will be rolled out later this year. However, as per latest report, it looks like the smarter <keyword id="196611" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="alexa" source="Orion">Alexa</keyword> won't be here before 2025. According to a Bloomberg report, the roll out of the smarter Alexa has been delayed until 2025. The goal was to make Alexa more conversational, with enhanced abilities that would position it as a more intuitive and powerful <keyword id="20578150" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="digital-assistant" source="keywords">digital assistant</keyword>. However, early testing has reportedly revealed significant challenges. The advanced version of Alexa was intended to be a breakthrough, allowing users to interact with the voice assistant in a more natural and versatile way. However, testers reported that Alexa’s new features were prone to issues, including overly lengthy responses that sometimes veered off-topic. Other complaints involved AI “hallucinations,” where Alexa provided inaccurate information, and unreliable integration with smart home devices, such as light switches, which is critical for many users. While Amazon has not officially commented on the delay, beta access to the upgraded Alexa has reportedly been suspended, limiting users' ability to test out its new capabilities. The delay suggests Amazon may need more time to refine and troubleshoot these issues before launching the update to a global audience. Amazon’s latest moves come as tech companies worldwide race to improve AI-driven assistants. The potential for a more intelligent, interactive Alexa remains high, and Amazon appears committed to delivering a polished, reliable version by 2025. For now, though, Alexa users will have to wait a bit longer for the promised leap forward.

Amazon's smarter Alexa gets delayed, will not be here until 2025

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Salesforce has expanded its AI tools with Agentforce, a platform to help users automate tasks.</li><li>Agentforce uses generative-AI models that build on Salesforce's existing products.</li></ul>For "CXO AI Playbook," Business Insider takes a look at mini case studies about AI adoption across industries, company sizes, and technology DNA. We've asked each of the featured companies to tell us about the problems they're trying to solve with AI, who's making these decisions internally, and their vision for using AI in the future.Salesforce is best known for its customer-relations-management software, which it says is used by over 150,000 companies, including Amazon and Walmart. It also owns Slack, a popular communication platform.The company is expanding the availability and capabilities of its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-says-new-focus-on-ai-agents-2024-9">AI agents with Agentforce</a>, a platform that helps Salesforce clients build and deploy agents to automate tasks such as generating written reports from sales data and creating summaries of conversations in Slack.<h2 id="68b90c5d-18fe-403b-bd1d-9eb93eab0695">Situation analysis: What problem were they trying to solve?</h2>AI agents aren't new to Salesforce. In 2016, the company <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/more-details-about-salesforce-einstein-2016-9">released Einstein</a>, an AI service for its CRM software. Einstein handled some of the tasks Agentforce can tackle, but the actions it could take were more scripted.With the arrival and rapid progress of generative-AI models, Salesforce saw an opportunity to improve agents' decision-making and understanding of natural language inputs, like email.That initially led to Einstein GPT, a generative-AI overhaul of Einstein. Then it evolved into Einstein Copilot, announced in early 2024. Now it's called Agentforce, which offers prebuilt and customizable agents."We had to recognize that our customers want to either extend the agents that we ship or they want to build their own customer agents," Tyler Carlson, Salesforce's vice president of business development, told Business Insider.<h2 id="2ba2ccfb-6dbf-46ab-848b-5578f676962f">Key staff and partners</h2>Agentforce's core technology, which Salesforce calls the Atlas Reasoning Engine, was developed by the company's engineering team. Salesforce also allows its clients to access AI models from third-party technology partners including OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon, and Google.Salesforce has worked with internal and external partners to showcase its AI agents. The company uses Slack to spotlight AI agents that can be accessed directly from the communication platform. (Currently, Agentforce's integration in Slack is in beta.)"The reason Slack is interesting for these employee-facing agents is that it surfaces these automations and capabilities to users where they're spending their time," Carlson said.<div type="image" title="Tyler Carlson headshot" height="640" width="640" msid="115192386" hostid="261" sizebytes="19750"></div><h2 id="5811f14e-6416-45e5-8f7e-d703b210910b">AI in action</h2>Salesforce says the Atlas Reasoning Engine uses what's known as <a target="_blank" href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.03629">ReAct prompting</a> to help agents reason through problems.ReAct helps an AI agent powered by a large language model break down a problem into its components and then provide steps to solve it. After each action, the AI agent evaluates the result to judge whether it has satisfied the user's prompt. If not, the agent loops through different reasoning and action steps until it reaches a satisfactory result.Salesforce says this can lead to fully autonomous agents that offer personalized support based on a user's specific inquiry and take action — like scheduling an appointment or meeting — without human intervention.The concept is similar to OpenAI's new o1 model, which uses the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-new-o1-model-capabilities-agi-2024-9">chain-of-thought prompting technique</a> to work through prompts step-by-step.The Atlas Reasoning Engine is proprietary technology built by Salesforce, and it has access to the company's internally developed LLMs. But it's also designed to work with LLMs provided by partners — the company expects many agents will take advantage of that capability."This is what I find most interesting about agentic systems," Carlson said. "They're not monolithic. They're not a single LLM."Allowing access to third-party LLMs can be risky because it means <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cyber-insurance-coverage-plan-benefits-costs">passing data to an outside vendor</a>. To address this, Salesforce instituted a policy that prohibits data retention. It also provides safeguards designed to identify and reject inappropriate responses to prompts.Salesforce's clients can also use a tool called Agentbuilder to create and deploy custom Agentforce agents that can act on triggers, such as receiving an email or making a sale, without a direct prompt from a company's employees. An automated agent might open messages from a general email inbox and forward them to specific departments based on the agent's understanding of the message's intent.Agentforce also uses <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/retrieval-augmented-generation-making-ai-language-models-better-2024-5">retrieval-augmented generation</a> to create agents that can answer questions based on a company's internal documents and private data. For example, this year Salesforce and Workday created an "AI employee service agent" designed to answer employee questions about a company's HR policies.<h2 id="31002808-8cdf-4bbd-a666-7e22bd1e3fdb">Did it work, and how did they know?</h2>Carlson said Salesforce measured the success of its software by the success of its clients, adding that the results so far had been positive. "That includes promising statistics, like seeing 90% of customer inquiries resolved by an agent," he said.Salesforce will also judge its success by Agentforce's adoption as a platform. The company wants to see clients broadly adopt AI agents designed with Agentbuilder and deploy them within their CRM systems and in Slack. It also wants to see the new AI agents take on larger caseloads and resolve interactions to satisfy clients and customers."By next year I want to see a larger and more open ecosystem of partners," Carlson said. "I want Agentforce to have thousands upon thousands of agent skills, topics, and a lot more that our customers can take advantage of."

Salesforce's new AI platform lets companies build their own digital agents to automate tasks

For a long time, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/reddit">Reddit</a> felt like it wasn't a place for everyone. Not that everyone couldn't be there — it's free to join, completely anonymous, and you can lurk without an account — but it was also a weird, sometimes dark little corner of the internet, probably closer to 4chan than Instagram. It was a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-new-content-policy-2015-7">bastion of free speech</a> but <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-ceo-said-racism-is-okay-2018-4">one that could get ugly</a>, something that Reddit leadership <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-war-users-community-free-speech-ellen-pao-victoria-taylor-2015-7">struggled to define and defend</a>. The interface was tricky to navigate for those not in the know.Nowadays, Reddit is a different — and more mainstream — beast. It's spent the past several years <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/reddit-and-the-struggle-to-detoxify-the-internet">cleaning itself up</a>. It's banned controversial subreddits and made the platform a more pleasant, user-friendly place to be. As its cofounder and CEO Steve Huffman told <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/reddit-and-the-struggle-to-detoxify-the-internet">The New Yorker in 2018</a>, the platform worked to get its "shit together."Moderators of individual subreddits — users that manage communities and enforce their content rules — still run much of the show but under a tighter set of policies. The moderators are pretty good at keeping their own houses in order, and in a landscape where AI spam is making it increasingly hard to figure out what's authentic information, Reddit's community-driven content and policing shine. Real, actual, live human beings are talking to each other, which, on balance, is good. This broadening of the platform has also been reflected in the business. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reddits-ipo-set-to-take-front-page-of-internet-public-2024-3">Reddit went public</a> earlier this year at a $6.4 billion valuation, and last quarter, the 20-year-old company turned a profit for the first time in its history. Reddit lovers and noobs are flocking to the site, thanks in part to the Google gods. The search platform is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-reddit-is-taking-over-google-right-now-2024-4">prioritizing Reddit's results</a>. There's speculation that it has to do with the companies' $60 million <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/1ax1nyh/reddit_has_struck_a_60_million_deal_with_google/">deal</a> to let Google use Reddit's data to train its AI, though both deny that's the case.Normal people — or, rather, people who aren't so steeped in online culture — are also seeking Reddit out. If you've recently found yourself inputting whatever search term and then tacking "reddit" onto the end of the search, you're not alone: On the company's most recent earnings call in October, Huffman said it's the sixth-most-Googled term in the United States this year."Those are people literally typing the word Reddit into Google," Huffman said. "So they know they're going to end up on it. They're using, in this case, Google to navigate Reddit."In other words, Reddit is a little bit <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-getting-worse-spam-affiliate-links-duckduckgo-bing-2024-1">the new Google</a>. And while people may not be heading in droves to Reddit to search directly, the hope is — at least on Reddit's end — that they someday will.It's not just Google. Other tech platforms' missteps have become some of Reddit's gains. As Twitter has become a worse, uglier forum for discourse, Reddit has emerged as an alternative for users and advertisers alike. People are increasingly <a target="_blank" href="https://www.vox.com/technology/23962999/best-product-reviews-shopping-reddit">using Reddit to find reviews</a> instead of turning to places such as Amazon, where the review section is often flooded with fakes. It's also becoming a more trusted place for reliable information — even <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/10/white-house-reddit-disinformation/680220/">the White House is using it to combat misinformation</a>.Basically, if you want to get honest opinions about a crockpot you're considering or get a sense of what recovery from a medical treatment might be like based on real-life experiences, Reddit is becoming the place to go for more people, including people who would have shied away just a few years ago.For those not paying close attention, Reddit's most recent earnings report was a bit of a "Wait, what?" moment. Its <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/reddit-stock-skyrockets-earnings-beat-ai-growth-revenue-huffman-2024-10">stock popped</a> after the company announced that its revenue had jumped by 68% and its daily active users increased by 47% compared to a year ago. Revenue from ads was up, as was cash from other areas — namely, Reddit licensing its data to train AI.Much of the boost in eyeballs appears to be coming from people who are relatively new to Reddit or who don't have accounts. Reddit's daily active users who are logged in to their account is up 27%, but that metric is up by 70% for people who are logged out. This is a bit of a risky proposition for Reddit — Wall Street and advertisers are more focused on that logged-in number because, <a target="_blank" href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/reddit-traffic-google-search-growth.html">as John Herrman at New York Magazine points out</a>, the Google algorithm can always shift against you, shutting off the traffic spigot. But for the purposes of looking at what's going on with consumers, the story is pretty clear: Lots of people are landing on Reddit more often, many of whom are casual browsers."It has gone from kind of a fringy and kind of, 'I'm not sure about it,' to very mainstream, and it's showing up in the numbers," said Mark Lehmann, the CEO of Citizens JMP Securities, one of the banks to help take Reddit public. He added that given how quickly the platform has grown and "monetized things even faster than people thought, I think it shows you the power of the leverage of the brand and the legitimization."To be clear, Reddit is still pretty small compared to other social-media sites. As <a target="_blank" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=e1355fc23cfc066980304c13aa726ac457ef26acf9ae7b17eddf693d740d7560&amp;postID=672a7cbbd057d3e5c5c4df84&amp;postSlug=reddit-mainstream-google-traffic-stock-revenue-human-users-2024-11&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theinformation.com%2Farticles%2Fwhy-reddits-explosive-growth-could-last">Anita Ramaswamy at the Information notes</a>, Snap has over 400 million daily users, and Meta has 3 billion across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, whereas Reddit has 97 million. Reddit's growing fast, though, and it's got a lot of room to grow. Marcel Hollerbach, the cofounder and chief innovation officer of Productsup, an e-commerce software company, compared Reddit's potential growth to that of Amazon."When you look at product searches, they tended to start primarily on Google, and nowadays Amazon actually has more product-search-related traffic than Google has," he said. "I would assume that, I mean, it's a matter of time until people figure out that probably if they're searching for a conversation around something or they want real user feedback and not just like a Wikipedia page or something, they might directly start engaging with Reddit."Reddit's recent ascendance was not a foregone conclusion. I won't dive into the site's full history, but let's just say it's had its fair share of controversies and upheavals, including over-greenlighting some <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-bans-r-fatpeoplehate-the-community-furious-ellen-pao-2015-6">pretty gross subreddits</a>, being a home for<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-jennifer-lawrence-nude-photos-on-reddit-2014-9"> leaked nude celebrity photos</a>, and allowing a fair amount of racist, sexist, offensive, and even potentially illegal content to run rampant. It's also dealt with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-blackout-48-hour-what-you-need-to-know-2023-6">revolts</a> from users and moderators. Even if you're not aware of the specifics of the fuss around Reddit, for a lot of people, it just had a reputation as being off the beaten path. In many ways, that's a positive — it gave space for people to anonymously have real conversations and engage with niche communities they might not find anywhere else. But there were also, as mentioned, some downsides.Part of what's happened with Reddit is that it's grown up. In terms of moderation, it's not perfect, but no one can even agree on what perfect is. If it wants to keep growing — and be on the public markets — there's a level of maturity that is necessary. Scott Kessler, the global sector lead of technology, media, and telecommunications at Third Bridge Group, pointed to the takeoff of r/WallStreetBets and the subsequent attention to the subreddit, especially during <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wallstreetbets-gamestop-nathaniel-popper-book-excerpt-2024-6">the GameStop short squeeze</a>, as a recent touchpoint that helped push Reddit into the mainstream. As much as WSB was treated as fringe at the time, it became much less so, especially after the media caught on. Two more things have caught people's attention when it comes to possible growth and performance: AI and data licensing and machine translation into other languages. Reddit isn't just reaching more people in the US, it's reaching more people everywhere. Going public, for Reddit, has entailed becoming a more welcoming place for users as well as for investors, Kessler said. If you're hosting a subreddit where illegal activity's going on, it's very different to deal with it as a private company than a public one."If you're public and these things come out, I mean, that could start having an impact on your market cap. And so that obviously will make a whole host of stakeholders unhappy," he said. It's not dissimilar to PayPal clamping down on gambling transactions in the early 2000s.Not everyone is thrilled with the normie-zation of Reddit. Jessica Melton, a 33-year-old longtime Redditor in Seattle, told me that it took a while for her to get the hang of Reddit when her then "self-proclaimed nerd" boyfriend introduced her to it in high school. But then, she felt like it helped her become her own person. It's where she found tips for approaching her first gynecological appointment, how she discovered she had a relatively common skin-picking disorder, why she decided to go to therapy, and how she navigated being the first among her friends to become a mom. She likes that there's more moderation now because there were some "really disgusting subreddits," but she also misses some of the specificity and smallness of the old days."There's way more ads, more sponsored stuff, more influencers in general, too," she said. "I have noticed more brands posting and pretending not to be a brand, and it's really obvious for people who have been on Reddit for a while. And it's annoying."To some extent, it's impossible to keep it too weird while becoming mainstream, and there's some specialness that's inevitably lost with growth. What's been gained isn't all good, either. Many of the factors that have driven people away from other platforms, whether it be Amazon or Instagram or Google, are things to which Reddit isn't immune. AI bots can talk on Reddit. Brands can overrun it. Just as search engine optimization operations have gotten good at gaming Google, they can likely do it on Reddit, too.Perhaps right now, Reddit's in almost a sweet spot: not so big that it's completely ruined by corporatization, not so niche and unwieldy that it's a hellscape. It's part social media, part search engine, part just a place for real answers, or as close to real as you're going to get on the internet today.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/emily-stewart">Emily Stewart</a> is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

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