The old dispensation
We can say a few things about web development and LLMs.
- The cost of web app and page development is high
- Interfaces must adapt to a variety of devices and visitors
- LLMs are widely used by web development teams
- LLMs are perceived of as assisting people, but may replace them
- LLMs are used to increase productivity and to educate
- Companies like OpenAI want to mediate (control) our every interaction
- Things will continue in a similar vein until the means of production excludes all but a handful of humans
Pro di immortales!
What happens next?
Jakob Nielsen suggested that generative AI could lead to Individualized UI.
It is possible that web development teams will use LLMs (generative AI) to create multiple custom UIs (though the idea has not gone down well).
It's also possible that external LLMs will help people create interfaces specific to their needs thereby bypassing our interfaces, and us.
In this imagined future, for example, online newspapers cease to exist. Their content is syndicated by third parties who bundle it with other content, wrap the aggregate with metadata (contracts, tariffs, advertising) which (a string of) LLMs consume in order to render a simulacrum of the original content in the form we (the reader) demand.
A reader's digest might appeal to the reader. They get what the want, when they want it, in the format they want.
Things are never that simple. There's always a cost.
Benefits to readers of syndicated material
- A bespoke newspaper made up only of stories they are interested in.
- Content moderated so that it doesn't grow endlessly, and older stories are culled.
- Alternative formats generated by AI such as an audio (or graphic novel) version of an article.
- A synthesis of, or comparison between, articles.
Downsides to readers of syndicated material
- Multiple fees and tariffs or a bundled offering. The reader gets more, or less, than they want.
- Advertising. Either required by the owner or writer of the article, or by a syndicate or by the platform or LLM that mediates the process.
- Loss of oversight. Provence is buried or obscured, bylines lost or subject to controls and deals.
- Loss of broader editorial concerns and considerations.
This is a fragmented world of news. For readers and for writers. Imprints will no longer have a masthead around which staff can rally. Without colleagues, editors, and a common purpose or remit, writers are adrift. Free to say what they want but unchallenged, and unsupported.
If a newspaper no longer has a site of its own, what of its web development team?
Web development contract work pays well. It's easier to make a living as a freelance programmer than as a freelance writer. But if the mainstays of digital life, sites and apps, are no longer relevant (wanted or needed), contracted and freelance developers, designers, product managers, UX specialists, QAs, etc. will confront a changed world where some of what they know is redundant.
Tools, processes, and environments are secondary to the know-how in communicating via digital interfaces. If control over those interfaces is not wrested from them (us), colleagues must work together on finding new ways to communicate, demonstrating that their (our) experience should not be carelessly discarded.
Conclusion
We foresee upheaval in web development. If we do not imagine new ways of doing things, we will have little influence over what happens next. If we do, we can invent new roles and participate in change.
In the next article, An All-Purpose API, we explore how digital teams anticipate change and establish a new paradigm for both showcasing information (articles, data, insights, etc.) and interpreting and representing it.