Medium's CEO on How AI Changes Writing — With Tony Stubblebine
Audio Brief
Show transcript
This episode analyzes the rise of AI-generated content, its impact on publishing, and the enduring value of human expression amidst these shifts.
There are four key takeaways from this discussion. Platforms must prioritize filtering AI-generated content as a new form of spam, focusing on user exposure rather than total volume. Human writing offers intrinsic value as a tool for thinking and sharing unique life experiences, a niche AI cannot replicate. AI-powered search summaries pose a significant threat to content creators by undermining traffic and economic incentives for publishing. Finally, the internet is seeing a shift from public to private spaces, risking an impoverished pool of shared human knowledge.
Low quality AI-generated content is effectively a more sophisticated form of spam. The critical challenge for platforms is not simply its existence, but how effectively it is filtered from readers. Measuring impact means focusing on what users actually see, not the sheer volume created.
The act of writing is an indispensable process for clarifying thoughts, deepening understanding, and articulating unique feelings. This intrinsic value for the writer, coupled with sharing unique human life lessons not found in AI training data, distinguishes human content. Platforms can strategically incentivize this authentic human knowledge sharing.
AI-powered search summaries, exemplified by Google's Gemini, drastically reduce referral traffic to original content sources. This erosion of traffic threatens both the economic and validation-based incentives for creators to publish their work online. Publishers face losing nearly 100 clicks from traditional search for every one gained from a Gemini summary, jeopardizing the flow of new human knowledge online.
The public internet is shrinking as users increasingly move from open platforms to more private spaces like Discord. This trend further diminishes the accessible pool of public human knowledge. This retreat impacts both current information sharing and the future training data available for AI models and society.
This discussion underscores the urgent need for platforms to adapt strategies that preserve and amplify authentic human voices amidst the AI revolution.
Episode Overview
- The conversation analyzes the rise of "AI slop" and Medium's strategy of treating it as a new form of spam to be filtered, rather than focusing on the total volume created.
- It explores the enduring value of human writing as an essential tool for thinking and clarifying one's own ideas, a process that AI cannot replicate for the individual.
- The discussion highlights the existential threat that AI-powered search summaries pose to publishers by cannibalizing traffic and undermining the incentives for people to share their knowledge publicly.
- It outlines Medium's strategic positioning as a platform dedicated to incentivizing and amplifying authentic human stories and "life lessons" in an increasingly AI-driven internet.
Key Concepts
- AI Slop as a New Form of Spam: Low-quality, AI-generated content is not a new category of problem but a more sophisticated version of spam. The key challenge for platforms is not its existence, but its distribution and how effectively it is filtered from readers.
- Human Writing as a Tool for Thinking: The act of writing is presented as an indispensable process for clarifying thoughts, deepening understanding, and articulating subconscious feelings. This intrinsic value for the writer is something AI-generated text cannot provide.
- The Value of "Life Lessons": The most valuable content that humans can share are their unique experiences and "life lessons," which are not yet in AI training data. Medium's strategy is to create a platform that specifically incentivizes and pays for this type of knowledge sharing.
- The Incentive Crisis from AI Search: AI-powered search summaries, like Google's Gemini, drastically reduce referral traffic to original content sources. This threatens the economic and validation-based incentives for creators to publish their work online, potentially starving the internet of new human knowledge.
- The Retreat to a Private Internet: The public internet is shrinking as users move from open platforms like Twitter to safer, private spaces like Discord. This trend further reduces the pool of public human knowledge available for both people and future AI models.
- Medium's Niche for "Real People": Medium is positioning itself as the ideal platform for everyday experts and individuals with valuable stories to tell, rather than competing for professional creators who are on a constant "content treadmill."
Quotes
- At 3:51 - "Does it matter how much slop is on Medium or does it matter how much slop our readers are seeing, which is the question I'm asking, right?" - Stubblebine explains his core disagreement with the premise of the Wired article on AI slop.
- At 10:28 - "Writing is thinking, and smart people like to think." - Stubblebine articulates his core belief about the enduring value of human writing.
- At 28:32 - "What we're saying in this really kind of niche part of Medium... is... the thing that we want to pay for to make sure it exists on the internet is your real life lessons." - Stubblebine explains the philosophy behind Medium's Partner Program, emphasizing its goal to preserve the sharing of unique human experiences.
- At 32:27 - "I would make the case that a lot of [the Twitter exodus] went to Discord. And that's an example of the public internet retreating into private spaces where it's safer to be yourself." - Stubblebine notes that the shift away from public social media threatens the pool of public human knowledge.
- At 43:39 - "we lose about 100 clicks from traditional Google search for every one click we get back from a Gemini summary." - Stubblebine provides a stark data point illustrating how AI-powered search is cannibalizing traffic to publishers.
Takeaways
- The impact of AI-generated content on a platform should be measured by user exposure, not by the total volume created; effective filtering is the crucial responsibility.
- The intrinsic value of writing is in the human process of clarifying thought and sharing unique experiences, a niche that platforms can focus on to differentiate from AI.
- AI-powered search summaries pose a severe threat to the creator ecosystem by collapsing the traffic and monetization incentives that encourage publishing new knowledge online.
- The internet is experiencing a shift from public squares to private communities, which risks impoverishing the shared pool of human knowledge that future AI models and society depend on.
