Analysts Warn That If AI Agents Succeed, the "Internet Will Go Dark"

In the logic of the machine learning gold rush, the next breakthrough offering in the industry will be "AI agents" — personal assistants, basically, that can use apps and computers to do tasks on your behalf. If that actually happens — a serious "if," but not a completely far-fetched possibility, as early efforts have already started to hit the market — there a major side effect: it'll totally change the ecosystem of information online if it's mainly being consumed by neural nets instead of humans. As Business Insider reports, financial analysts are warning that if the use of AI agents becomes widespread, there will be sweeping knock-on effects throughout the economy. Take Bernstein wealth management analysts Mark Shmulik and Nikhil Devnani, who wrote in a recent investor note flagged by BI that the effects on the economies of the internet will be seismic as apps and websites start to be designed with AI users in mind instead of human ones. "If AI agents truly become useful, the in ... Read full article.