Via Macken­zie Mor­gan on a Mastodon thread, a Wash­ing­ton Post arti­cle, “Inside the secret list of web­sites that make AI like Chat­G­PT sound smart.” The best part is that it lets you type in URLs to see just how much data the chat­bot is pulling from par­tic­u­lar websites. 

Of course, I had to start look­ing at my niche of Quak­er web­sites. Yes, behind my laid-back demeanor I can be qui­et­ly com­pet­i­tive, so I ranked them. The count is “tokens,” which the arti­cle describes as “small bits of text used to process dis­or­ga­nized infor­ma­tion — typ­i­cal­ly a word or phrase.” This is a Google AI chat­bot but pre­sum­ably all of these bots are scrap­ing the same open web­site data.

• friend​sjour​nal​.org 1.44m
• quak​erquak​er​.org 620k
• afsc​.org 300k
• qhpress​.org 290k
• west​ern​friend​.org 230k
• nyym​.org 210k
• afriend​lylet​ter​.com 160k
• pym​.org 150k
• fcnl​.org 140k
• quak​ersinthe​world​.org 140k
• quak​er​pod​cast​.org 130k
• quak​er​.org​.uk 130k
• fgc​quak​er​.org 120k
• Quak​er​.org 110k
• Quak​er​s​peak​.com 100k
• quak​er​cloud​.org 58k
• friend​scoun​cil​.org 39k
• quak​er​in​fo​.com 32k
• quak​er​in​fo​.org 22k
• the​friend​.org 29k
• fwcc​.world 12k
• fwc​camer​i​c​as​.org 5.8k

There’s been a flur­ry of blog posts by Quak­ers typ­ing things into Chat­G­PT. See Mark Pratt-Russum’s “A Quak­er Pas­tor Asks Chat­G­BT to Write a Ser­mon” or Chuck Fager’s “Chat­bot Names Top Quak­er Issues; Makes Blog Obso­lete?”

If the Chat­G­PT results sound like a rehashed Friends Jour­nal arti­cle, as Chuck implies, well they most­ly are: with Friends Jour­nal and Quak­erQuak­er (huh!) account­ing for as much of Chat­G­P­T’s con­tent as the next dozen-ranked sites put togeth­er. (Am I miss­ing any content-rich Quak­er site?)

So yes, you could type queries into a chat­bot that has no idea what it’s think­ing. Or you could, you know, sup­port the Quak­er media that Google, Microsoft, Ama­zon, Face­book, etc., are train­ing their bots on. Real Quak­er writ­ing by real Quak­ers who write. I’ve long thought big tech is the biggest threat to Quak­er media but now they’ve start­ed com­pet­ing against us with our own words. It’s real­ly quite nuts. 

Chang­ing hats to wear mine as senior edi­tor of Friends Jour­nal. The rea­son our web­site seems to rule the roost of AI content-scraping is that we don’t have a pay­wall. Gen­er­ous donors, most­ly every­day read­ers, allow us to make all of our arti­cles and Quak­er­S­peak videos and Quak​er​.org explain­ers free to read. Yes, chat­bots are “read­ing” it, but so too are iso­lat­ed seek­ers look­ing for a faith path and spir­i­tu­al answers and stum­bling on Friends Jour­nal. Think about becom­ing an FJ sus­tain­ing mem­ber and at least join the free email list from the box on the home­page. I’m a bit sur­prised and hum­bled that Quak­erQuak­er is so high up; a dona­tion there could help jump­start my 2023 res­o­lu­tion to relaunch it with mod­ern tech. 

Think about it: a donate to Friends Jour­nal and Quak­erQuak­er will help ensure qual­i­ty chat­bot answers for gen­er­a­tions to come!