What is the meaning of all of this? So, this is the first blog post ever on AnalogSeek. As we all are painfully aware, we're at a pivotal time in technology as AI came crashing down like tsunami up ending the world as we knew it. As a post modern human, the only fact of my life was the assumption of change by the inevitable march of technology. I knew without a doubt we'd automate more aspects of our lives. The internet had already upended many institutions like travel agencies or banks. However, like most I did not see the automation of creativity, expression, art and the things that make us While I could say many thoughts, and feelings I have about AI, there are many I think its best to tell the story when I saw the future. It was winter of 2022, and I was working for a small agency in the Pacific Northwest. Being a web developer, I signed up early for Chat GPT access after reading about it on Hacker News. It seemed a bit like a novelty but it was fun trying to get it generate fictitious scripts for Seinfeld or Scrubs and amazing that made somewhat coherent dialogues. However, I decided to have it generate a quick short story about my significant other's dog who'd passed months ago. I sent it to her as it was cute and irreverent but it made her cry. A predictive text algorithm got a real human response. It clicked in that moment that this was something different. Then in the same night, I found out AI could code. Not good but it was able to create simple JavaScript scripts and React scaffolding. > chat gpt 3 f*cked my head up after I used it. This is so huge and terrible. - December 3rd, 2022 Now we're nearly 3 years into the AI "revolution" and each passing day, it seems we're further down the enshittification of the web, with the dead internet theory becoming even more and more true day by day. However, it doesn't have to be this way. That's what AnalogSeek aims to fix, highlighting a lighter, more irreverent and soulful internet. The original promise of the internet was to find community and make connections. For a time, it seemed like it just might do that. Perhaps it was inevitable that the internet became the omnipresence in our lives with only handful mega sites siphoning most of the web traffic and engagement. The old 1.0 internet wasn't perfect but there was a charm in it's simplicity and the fractured nature made it more of an adventure and lacked pressure of popularity contests on social media. As the kids say, "it was a vibe". # The Future This site isn't anti-AI, it helped me code this very website but it is against artificial slop. It's also not anti social networks as I enjoy a few myself, YouTube and Reddit being particularly engaging platforms but those are well serviced and surfaced by the almighty algorithms. I'm still working on a manifesto or ethos for this site but maybe it doesn't need one. The only guiding light should be highlighting brilliance of human creativity, expression, and curiosity. I still don't have any real hard criteria what makes a website "AnalogSeek" worthy. There's quite a bit of questions for example, some of the best writing is on Substack. Does AnalogSeek highlight these? How about comicbooks hosted on platforms? Do I list record label websites if they're owned by one of the big 5? I don't think I have the answers right now and I think I'll table them as there's too much to do. The goal is to see how far this goes. I'd love to expand this site into a sprawling mess of the old portals of days of yore, with silly browser games, local search options and region specic analogseek, chat rooms, and build out a massive index of curated sites by people who are passionate about great content.