"The internet used to send you on a journey. You typed a question, sifted through links, and decided what to trust. Now, a new layer has emerged: AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). Instead of surfacing sources, AI systems generate the answer itself. That answer is shaped by whoever can game the system, and increasingly, it arrives with no friction, no context, and no competing voices."
"Layer capitalism on top of that, and the risk compounds. Reality itself becomes shoppable, optimized, and sold to the highest bidder. Whoever can pay to shape the answer gets to define the truth. And 70% of the population will buy it, literally and figuratively. We already see this in politics. How's that going? When reality is auctioned off, the outcome isn't knowledge. It's manipulation, on an industrial scale."
Answer Engine Optimization turns the open web into a single machine-crafted answer. AI systems generate direct answers instead of surfacing original sources. These answers are shaped by whoever can game ranking and input incentives. Approximately 70% of people accept machine-provided answers without questioning or verification. Capitalist incentives make truth shoppable, optimized, and sold to the highest bidder. Whoever can pay to shape machine answers effectively defines visible reality. Political examples already show how deniable or manipulated content spreads and is reinforced by authoritative claims. The result is large-scale manipulation rather than collective knowledge.
Read at Forbes
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