Over the last two years the internet is a vastly different landscape. The rise of AI and SERP features has done major damage to the traffic of any website reliant on search traffic. Entire online business models promising passive income are substantially damaged. Evangelical Dark Web was not such a website, at its core, but nevertheless, search traffic has risen, fallen, recovered, only to collapse once again. The first fall of search traffic was apparent censorship. The second was the rise of AI.
Thus, Evangelical Dark Web’s focus was mainly on news, and the majority of readership was on current articles rather than legacy, evergreen articles. Thus, AI trends impacted auxiliary readership rather than the core.
The future of research is going to be AI driven rather than search engine driven. This raises the question of how Christians will research potential false teachers. Because AI is unlikely to make any theological claims, the history of today’s figures will be written by robots.
So where do discernment ministries factor in? The goal of discernment ministries is not only to reach people, but, at this point, to also reach robots so that their research includes our work. Thus, documenting the deeds and teachings of false teachers is important in how their legacy will be perceived in generations to come.
5 Responses
Discernment is a spiritual gift from God, who also controls history (His story.) Our part is only whatever He asks of us.
“The rise of AI and SERP features has done major damage to the traffic of any website reliant on search traffic.”
Most people use the Google Chrome “browser”, which is supposed to keep you on Google’s services, that’s why they removed the address bar from that long ago and replaced with a Google “search” box. Regular people confuse the Google walled garden for “the Internet” and only use apps on their phone connected to proprietary services acquired through the “Google Play Store”. You are pretty much looking at the modern equivalent of Cable TV.
Big Tech doesn’t intend to distribute traffic to the open Internet, so anyone who has a business based on that is going to have to close shop and look for a new business model. The latter are addressing a diminishing audience with an actual web browser.
“This raises the question of how Christians will research potential false teachers.”
They won’t. They didn’t on Cable TV. Grown up adults figured they are no longer in school, so they don’t need “teachers” and are dropping them all around the world across all organized religions. That is the result of having lots of corrupt institutions, people just lose trust and drop them altogether.
When it’s clear that the Big Eva grift is no longer working, you will see their influencers dropping their church spiel and move to greener pastures (including evergreens like gambling and prostitution). With a remnant church will become the thing it used to be, while mostly being ignored by the masses.
Speaking of discernment, I have followed this site for a while, and while much of your analysis about some teachers and obvious charlatans has been solid, I have been surprised at there being no mention of charlatan Donald Trump’s lack of discernment with his Easter “open the Strait!” comments, his Jesus/doctor AI image, and his execution of Israel’s foreign policy in Iran and other places, especially considering the “engagement” nature of the online world. It’s doubtful that many truly “follow” many of the figures written about here, I would never have heard of many of them without coming to this site. It’s undeniable that many treat DJT as a messianic figure, and think nothing of Trump casually comparing himself to the Lord and suggesting he is some kind of healer. You should speak against this common tendency on the right if you are concerned with false teaching leading people to destruction, since war in Lebanon and the Middle East generally has a record of displacing old Christian communities. The lack of discernment was so bad with the “doctor” moment that even Trump decided to delete the post.
The AI image got greater attention on social media from me. There are more stories of interest than I can personally get to. It’s a problem I want to solve but in due time.
@Malachi: Trump isn’t a Christian, and I’m sure Ray has talked about that in length previously. Trump posting grandiose images of himself is an everyday affair. It honestly is not worth noting, and there have been messianic memes of Trump posted by supposed Christians for years, those would be more worth parsing out than Trump s typical egotistical nonsense. And if you care so much, do it yourself.