Why Do We Still Go Online in the Age of AI?
The Past 30 Years of the Internet — and a New Frontier for Human Experience
The Paradox of the Past 30 Years
Over the past 30 years, we've spent more and more time online while steadily reducing the effort it takes to use the internet.
Search engines made information easier to find. Smartphones made the internet accessible wherever we went.
Recommendation algorithms even reduced the effort of deciding what to watch.
Meanwhile, the internet evolved from a tool for finding information into a place where we watch videos, play games, and connect with others.
We've made the internet easier to use while finding more ways to experience it.
What AI Can't Do for Us
AI agents are accelerating this trend.
As AI takes over tasks like searching, comparing options, making reservations, and purchasing products, we'll have fewer reasons to visit websites and navigate them ourselves.
We may increasingly leave the things we have to do online to AI, freeing up more time for the things we want to do.
A future in which AI creates content and other AI systems consume it brings to mind the questions raised by the Dead Internet Theory.
The internet could become a system that remains highly active even without much direct human participation.
But that doesn't mean people will leave the internet behind. Having AI watch a movie or take a trip on our behalf doesn't mean we've experienced either one ourselves.
We can delegate tasks to AI, but we can't delegate the experience of living through them.
When the Internet Enters the Physical World
Until now, we've experienced the internet primarily through screens.
Our devices have changed from PCs to smartphones, but we still look at a screen to interact with the online world.
Smart glasses could change that relationship.
Imagine walking down a street and discovering someone's digital artwork floating in front of a building, or visiting a park where a virtual bird created by someone else flies between the trees.
What matters isn't simply moving beyond the screen.
It's the possibility of experiencing the physical world and the internet together.
As the way we experience the internet changes, the places we inhabit may take on new meaning.
Rediscovering Place
For decades, the internet has evolved by removing the limitations of physical location.
Being able to access the same information and content from anywhere has been one of its defining strengths.
But human experience is inseparable from place.
The same music can feel different depending on where we hear it, and some stories carry a special meaning only in certain locations.
A place is more than a set of coordinates. It's part of what gives an experience its meaning.
As the internet becomes more closely integrated with the physical world, location could become more than a factor in search results and recommendations.
Places themselves could become spaces where digital content exists, waiting to be discovered and experienced.
When the internet becomes part of our physical reality, location becomes a defining part of the experience.
Of course, simply placing digital content somewhere won't be enough.
People will need a reason to seek it out, and new ways of enjoying these experiences will need to emerge.
For the past 30 years, the internet has made it possible to access the same digital world regardless of where we are.
Perhaps the next 30 years will bring an internet where what we experience depends on where we are.
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The next chapter of the internet may be defined not by what we can access, but by where we experience it..
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