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Ask HN: The Web Post ChatGPT?

7 points by canterburry ↗ HN
The humble chat thread is rapidly becoming the defacto interface to information for so many right now. Search results no longer take you to web pages but a composed answer at the top of the search results. Do you even click the referenced webpage?

So, what will we need HTML or CSS for? Should we start talking about what an AI bot optimized web looks like since people won't really be browsing web pages anymore.

Simple markdown comes to mind or even just RSS should make the AI bot crawling easier and faster.

9 comments

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bearjaws
Aren't all examples of where Chat is better just more simple Q&A type apps?

I've worked in EMR software for 10 years and I will tell you this - no doctor wants to ask the EMR for information, they want it to be smart enough to show exactly what they need at exactly the right time. For example, if I am viewing a patient on specialty medication X I want relevant labs, medical history, current med profile and any allergies. A doctor would be furious if they had to spend their time going "what allergies does this patient have?"

Not that EMRs are the pinnacle of good design, but this is the reason why there is so much information per page.

In my experience - if the user is searching for information, then typically your UI is not intuitive and or not making good use of the screen real estate.

canterburry
Yes, chat is a horrible ux for so many things.
codingdave
I'm not sure I follow. The UI for ChatGPT is still on your browser, yes? So it is still HTML and CSS. The fact that it is generated content instead of static doesn't change the front-end tech that renders it on-screen.

If you are saying the UX paradigm will no longer be "pages", that I can believe. But the browser still is the most common way to access content, regardless of what generates that content.

marcuskaz
I believe they are saying for the rest of the web, where all the information and millions of web pages. If no one goes to those web pages anymore and digests all the info via chat interfaces (ChatGPT, Google instant answers, etc...) then what's the point of having web sites.

I think pointing at HTML and CSS is odd, having complete individual sites that no one visits is the impact

codingdave
Ah. In that case, I reject the premise. Chat-based UX is kinda awful, and while some companies are pushing it, I don't know many people who actually thrive in such apps. I doubt such UX will result in people no longer visiting web pages.
canterburry
I absolutely agree that the chat UI is horrible, and somehow chat = AI to do many people right now.

I hope it will change, but I have been observing more and more how people, out of share convenience, just go to chatgpt for anything now, they don't even bother with a Google search.

canterburry
I see you point. My line of thinking was, SEO has become such an optimization game that websites have become less usable in order to rank higher in many cases.

So, it would be logical to think over time, content friendly to AI bots will be favored over anything optimized for humans.

Now, I don't know what incentives will be put in place for content creators by AI companies, because if no one is viewing pages, then no one is viewing ads so what pays for all this content... no idea?

Maybe AI companies will need to adopt a Spotify type of payment model where authors are paid cents each time their content is referenced.

theanonymousone
Maybe then "interactivity" becomes more important and sort of a distinctive feature?

More move from "web of documents" nature of Original Internet to the "web of applications" idea?