Welcome to the world of machine audiences

Unlock unlimited access to all our award-winning journalism, subscriber-only podcasts and newsletters Subscribe to The Economist Unlock unlimited access to all our award-winning journalism, subscriber-only podcasts and newsletters Your browser does not support the <audio> element. O ver the past 30 years, most recently in a former church in San Francisco, the Internet Archive has systematically preserved over a trillion snapshots of the web. Late last year it began archiving something different: how artificial-intelligence systems respond to questions about the world. The web’s great librarian has recognised something new worth preserving, and it is a signal that the centre of gravity in the information economy may be moving, from what is published to what is being asked. The conversation about ai and the information economy is mostly about supply. Content is being commoditised. Journalism is dying. Intellectual property is being scraped without consent or compensation. The internet is

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• Stella Jia