Researchers warn that most of the text we view online has been poorly translated into one or more languages—usually by a machine.

A ‘Shocking’ Amount of the Web Is Already AI-Translated Trash, Scientists Determine::Researchers warn that most of the text we view online has been poorly translated into one or more languages—usually by a machine.

  • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    73·
    10 months ago

    I’ve been saying for quite a while now that the Internet was best in the '90s and early 2000s back before it was commercialized, even despite all the “under construction” gifs and whatnot. The signal/noise ratio has only continued to drop since then.

      • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        10 months ago

        Since I am an English speaker, my '90s Internet experience was very different than that. There were “link farms” (pages designed to exploit early search engine algorithms that scored pages higher when they got linked to a lot) and e-mail spam, of course, but being unsophisticated, it was generally a lot easier not to get suckered in by than the firehose of AI-written advertorials and shit we have today.

        • wikibot@lemmy.worldBEnglish
          6·
          10 months ago

          Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

          An advertorial is an advertisement in the form of editorial content. The term “advertorial” is a blend (see portmanteau) of the words “advertisement” and "editorial. " Merriam-Webster dates the origin of the word to 1946. In printed publications, the advertisement is usually written to resemble an objective article and designed to ostensibly look like a legitimate and independent news story. In television, the advertisement is similar to a short infomercial presentation of products or services.

          to opt out, pm me ‘optout’. article | about

    • jawa21@startrek.websiteEnglish
      14·
      10 months ago

      You forgot the pop-ups, forced midi music, easily injected malware, difficulty in verifying sources, html frames that frequently broke, the entire concept of needing a site map, fucking keywords, true banner ads that could force clicks with Javascript, and RealPlayer to name a few. I don’t miss it at all.

      • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
        20·
        10 months ago

        No, I didn’t forget anything. It was still better even despite all that.

    • LillyPip@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      It was always bad, it’s just now bad in a slightly different way. I’ve been online since 1994 and, yeah. If anything, it’s a bit easier to avoid malware and scams these days. Even websites from reputable sources were sketch as fuck back then, with seizure-inducing popups and a minefield of JavaScript malware with no real options for VPN or blocking ads.

      It’s been getting steadily better over the past 10 years or so, and the AI nonsense is threatening to send us back to the early internet Wild West.

      All we need now is for Microsoft to start including 30 very sketchy ‘demos’ and mandatory adware with Windows again and the nostalgia will be complete.

      The internet is light years ahead today. What we need is anti-ai filters in our browser to keep our browsing clean of shitty AI nonsense, kinda like ad blocking plugins.

      e: I’d do UX, usability, and some dev on such a plugin if anyone wants to do some dev, too.