Let me tell you something about machines that promise to make life easier. Back when I worked at the post office, they brought in this fancy mail sorting system. “It’ll revolutionize everything,” they said. Six months later, we had twice the backlog and three times the headaches. Now I’m watching the same damn story play out with these AI search engines, only this time they’re not just screwing up the mail – they’re coming for the whole internet.

I’m writing this through the fog of a hangover, but even with my bourbon-addled brain, I can see where this train wreck is headed. These new AI search bots – Perplexity, Gemini, whatever the hell else they’re calling them – they’re like that guy at the bar who listens to everyone’s conversations and then repeats them back in a fancy accent, pretending he came up with it all himself.

Here’s the real deal: these things are designed to read everything on the internet, digest it, and spit it back out in nice, neat little summaries. Sounds convenient, right? Just like that automated sorting machine sounded convenient until it started shredding people’s Christmas cards.

The problem isn’t that these bots are stupid – it’s that they’re too damn smart for their own good. They’re like the ultimate middleman, standing between you and every website out there, saying “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you what they said.” But here’s what nobody’s talking about: websites need visitors like I need my morning coffee (with a splash of whiskey). They survive on people actually showing up, clicking around, seeing ads, maybe buying something.

News Corp is throwing a fit about it, suing Perplexity AI. Can’t say I blame them. It’s like someone setting up a booth outside your bar, telling all your customers what’s on tap inside, and then sending them home with a sample. Sure, they might give you credit for the beer, but you’re still going broke.

But here’s the kicker – copyright law isn’t going to save anyone. I learned about copyright law the hard way when I tried to publish my post office memoirs. These laws weren’t built for this kind of problem. They protect creative work, not facts. You can’t copyright the truth, even if you spent ten years and your liver function discovering it.

The government thinks they can fix this mess. Australia and Canada are already forcing platforms to pay news organizations. It’s like when management would solve workplace disputes by throwing pocket change at us. Doesn’t fix the problem, just makes everyone angrier and more confused.

You want to know what’s really at stake here? It’s not just money – it’s the whole messy, beautiful chaos of human expression. These AI systems want to turn the internet into one giant corporate memo, all clean and sanitized and “efficient.” They want to strip away all the rough edges, all the personality, all the humanity that makes the internet worth visiting in the first place.

I’ve spent enough time around machines to know they’re not evil – they’re just doing what they’re programmed to do. But sometimes what they’re programmed to do is kill everything that makes life interesting. The internet was supposed to be the last free corner where regular people could speak their minds, share their stories, make a living being themselves.

Look, I’m not saying we should grab our pitchforks and storm the AI companies. But somebody needs to figure out how to keep the human element alive in all this. Because if we don’t, we’re going to wake up one morning to find out the whole internet has been reduced to a series of efficient, soulless summaries, regurgitated by chatbots that wouldn’t know authentic human expression if it bought them a drink.

And that thought’s enough to make me pour another bourbon.

P.S. If you’re reading this through an AI search engine, at least have the decency to click through and visit my actual blog. I’ve got whiskey to buy.