Some Thoughts on EEAT

byDonHawkins

79 followers

7 months ago

Kyle published a remarkable post today. The thrust of his argument is that internet content, if it is to be recognized, must become content of quality and usefulness. Kyle noted that we at WA must embrace this change and discover the opportunities it presents. Starting today, Google will require more than glitter. Our content must possess expertise, it must be useful, it must add something new to the human conversation, and it must be EEAT!!

An Overwhelming Task: Google Site SEO

Knowledge is exploding. Every time I google a fact I am overwhelmed with the information that Google throws at me. I received my Ph.D. in Psychology 20 years ago. Most of what I learned is obsolete. Relative to the growth of the human knowledge base, 20 years represents more than a century of change. Let me quote an article by David Russell Shilling on the growth rate of knowledge now.

... on average human knowledge is doubling every 13 months. According to IBM, the build out of the “internet of things” will lead to the doubling of knowledge every 12 hours.

Such words make me feel like an intellectual midget among giants. If I have some expertise, it will soon be obsolete in a couple of days. Mr. Shillings facts intimidate me into silence. How can the individual have any relevance to knowledge anymore? How can I, an individual, show anything but ignorance, regardless of how many degrees I have? I can't compete with the human research machine and its bad boy, Artificial Intelligence. Or can I?

What Does AI Lack?

Let me quote Mr. Shilling again concerning the human brain.

In a recent lecture at Harvard University neuroscientist Jeff Lichtman, who is attempting to map the human brain, has calculated that several billion petabytes of data storage would be needed to index the entire human brain. The Internet is currently estimated to be 5 million terabytes (TB) of which Google has indexed roughly 200 TB or just .004% of its total size. The numbers involved are astounding especially when considering the size of the human brain and the number of neurons in it.

Well, that makes me feel a little less small. An adequate map of my brain, your brain, requires more information than the internet. That is more than remarkable. Why is the human brain so complex? I may be wrong, but I don't think my cats have such complex brains. Given my experience with them, I'm hesitant to assume I'm smarter. I'm often left feeling that is not the case. I'm far from an expert in human brain research, but I will take a guess at why the human brain needs to be so complex. Obviously, it is more complex than any AI at present. I think it must have something to do with personal experience. My interactions with AI is that it can do amazing things, it can beat a champion chess player or out perform a skilled fighter pilot flying a simulated fighter jet in a dog fight. So What!!! If AI can do these feats and I can't, What do I have that AI doesn't? I have personal experience.

Personal Experience: Google Search Engine SEO

AI has experience, but it is not personal. AI learns from its past experiences, and may soon develop consciousness, but it is not personal experience. Alan Turning believed that AI is a different kind of intelligence from human intelligence. I take Alan Turing's opinion and assume AI is a different kind of intelligence. I would go further, for which I have no qualifications, and assume that the one thing AI can never have is a personal experience. I believe personal experience is uniquely organic and human.

I believe my assumption is not trivial. It provides us a place in the increasingly dense forest of human knowledge. My expertise in Psychology is in the area of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). ABA is a small but unique field that takes basic behavior research and applies it to everyday human problems. Having worked in this field for a number of years, I have realized the importance of the word, "applied." Every application of a basic scientific principle entails new knowledge. Every new organization of scientific knowledge entails new knowledge. I believe that is a fruitful approach to the task of creating new, original, expert, information that is experientially based and trustful. Experientially based in our personal experiences. The individual is at the bottom of the hierarchy of social organization. We too often dismiss our own experiences as unworthy. I believe it is this personal knowledge that is lacking in the present body of information spewed out daily by AI. I believe this personal information is important and can never be achieved by AI. I don't care how detailed in human characteristics AI becomes, it can never be a human being. As Alan Turing predicted, it is a different kind of intelligence. The Google Search Engine must look else where than AI to find personal experience in any of its forms.

Something New I Bring To The Table: Google SEO Advice

How do these considerations functionally relate to me as an entrepreneur? I am an applied behaviorist; I need something functional from these thoughts. In applying formal behavior principles to people's daily problems, one comes to appreciate the context of the behavior. Behavior becomes very personal when you delve into its context. I recently reviewed a website that really changed my thinking about websites. The website was in the niche of personal beauty and the post discussed the problem of hair loss and its remedy.

The website's creator based her approach on her personal experience with hair loss. Rather than a message of "I have the answer," the creator presented her own case of hair loss with pictures of her own hair in its present condition exhibiting hair loss. Her approach to selling products was simple and personal: "I have a problem, I don't know the answer but I am on an exploration for an answer; come with me on my journey."

With photos and almost a diary-type log of her experiences, the author opened her world to us. Her expertise was exactly her personal experience of the problem of hair loss. She described the products she was presently using and how she applied them. This woman had set a context in which she could offer products in a very personal way. I have never believed any hair-loss remedy would work, but she almost had me buying some products and I have no hair!! I was astonished at the power of the personal dimension for connecting with me as a human being on a similar journey. I was astonished at the generality that her post had from the perspective of the individual. I learned so much about online selling from reviewing this woman's website.

AI can't do this. AI can bring to the table a universe of information about hair loss, about the experience of hair loss, but information is not experience. AI will never have that general perspective that arises from the personal. Because each of us is unique, we can create unique knowledge that has general application, as general as a universal law. This is the mystery of the human brain. We are not calculators; we are creators!! Applying scientific knowledge to the context of our personal lives is one direction the WA community can travel in its journey of creating Expert, Experiential, and Authoritative knowledge that can be Trusted. We at WA are very fortunate to have leaders of our community that understand this.