If 2025 is the year you decided to “live off the grid,” from the media (whatever form) and immerse yourself in your own, head-phoned, secured, familiar world tuning out the perpetual disharmony of the orchestra calibrating its instruments for the next big opening piece. This may not be way to do it. You could be left seeking a way out of uncharted territory.
Technology is moving faster than most people can keep up with. The headlines change daily. You don’t need to be versed on every oscillating development, but you do need to keep a pulse on what is happening around you. Developing a sense of what not to pay attention to or read should be your goal instead.
“The delta between AI advancement and human readiness is growing too fast, and no one seems incentivized enough to close it.” – Allie K Miller
AI created content, pictures, articles, posts are everywhere especially on Facebook. My Mom was getting sucked into one of these and I had to convince her that the vast majority of what she now sees on Facebook is fake. It’s hard for those who aren’t aware of this to recognize the nuances and subtleties, especially in the ads that threaten a virus or a hack if you don’t do something quick.
I have access to her account and have cleaned it up several times but it’s becoming more frequent. And it’s not straightforward how to eliminate and block this content since Facebook repeatedly changes the settings. I did get her account sent to Facebook “jail” (twice) because I was making too many changes too fast and had to spread it out over a week.
We have to be vigilant for those (parents, kids) who aren’t keeping up or haven’t developed the insight. In order to be vigilant, we need to know what to pay attention to and redevelop that keen sense of recognizing nuances and subtleties we used to have, another lost art. Today, people want the step-by-step, carefully worded, abridged, guaranteed, hack to everything. The charlatans are leveraging this. The Subtle Catch – Cache Coach
Whatever form of news you can tolerate, at the very least pay attention to the latest scams, fraud, hacking, thefts and threats however they are carried out and whoever they target. And pay close attention to the latest AI developments even when they appear to be hype or the most far-fetched thing you have ever heard. Just remember, we are headed into uncharted territory.
A new form of artificial intelligence known as “AI agents” has quietly taken over some of the most integral functions of our online world. These agents go beyond traditional algorithms or generative AI tools. They are designed to make decisions and execute actions with minimal human oversight. These AI agents can filter what is shown in your social media feed, decide which headlines top your search results, and even flag or bury content they deem inappropriate. I see this unrelentingly on Facebook and more recently on LinkedIn. They have become the new gatekeepers of the Internet. AI Agents: The New Gatekeepers of the Internet | Exponential Era
Search engines like Google Gemini, MS Bing Copilot, ChatGPT search, Perplexity are another key example. Powerful AI agents comb through countless webpages to rank results, filtering what’s relevant and what isn’t. While the intent of these methods presumably is to help us navigate the Internet abyss, they also have unintended consequences. Some companies’ website traffic has dropped precipitously due to Google’s new Gemini algorithm.
A beautifully optimized website can become irrelevant if AI search decides it’s not worth surfacing. My goal last year was to start writing on my website which I figured out and did. My goal this year is to make it more relevant to AI search which prioritizes recency and credibility and figure out how to use SEO – search engine optimization that is still considered important.
At the end of each of my posts, there is this section I know little about. Let’s just say I’m winging it for now.
According to the techies on Reddit, publishing platforms like Substack, Medium and Beehiiv prevent or block ChatGPT and other AI web crawlers from scraping the content that is published on these sites. Which means if you actively read or post content on these publishing platforms, this content will not appear in any AI-assisted search. Reddit information will.
And finally, a relevant example of how fast technology moves without us realizing it. We recently had a garage door opener that failed – Old School – Cache Coach. The new ones with cameras have been installed. My husband was trying to set-up the door he uses on the app which we already had an account to from our garage door in California. He spent a lot of time trying to get it to work, calling support and arguing with me that we had to get our Internet modem in 2.4 GHz mode. We no longer have an Internet “modem.” It’s called a “Gateway” now and is an all-in-one device. There are no separate modes for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz like his Parent’s “modem.” The Gateway automatically detects the type of device you are adding to your home network whether it is 2.4, 5 or even 6 GHz.
I knew I would be the one resolving this. We replaced my garage door opener also since it was likely to fail soon as well. I had no issues setting mine up as I read through and followed the steps via the app. When I tried to set his up, I had the same issues he did. So, I searched on some forums and let me tell you the amount of cursing and frustration this app has accumulated. My husband was not alone. And you had to be careful not to follow some of the troubleshooting because it would reset your opener to default mode and wipe out all your other connections – the wall opener, the one in your vehicle and the remote.
This morning, I had him unplug the opener and then plug it back in while I reset the Internet Gateway. He went to wash his Jeep while I attempted the set-up once more. It failed again but as I started retrying, I realized something completely counterintuitive. I was rushing through the set-up because I knew it so well that I was going too fast out of frustration. As I went through the second attempt, I paused at each step as if I were reading the instructions on the step-by-step guide and it worked. If the app developers had designed the set-up in fast mode, we’d all be cursing them on our first attempt for making it way too fast to even read through the prompts.
Patience is still a virtue. To help you navigate some uncharted territory, here is Allie K. Miller’s “ultimate ChatGPT troubleshooting guide for everyone still cursing at their computer when they use AI.”
Featured Image – Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming – Photographer Cary Wauters