Observing a drop in online documentation and referencing about Algonquin Park camping and canoeing, I've observed a change in peoples' uses .. Facebook, paid portals, etc. However with the recent advent of Artificial Intelligence searches, I've wondered if the "mind-set" and practices of the majority of internet users are going through a dramatic and hereto unrecognized shift.

As a result, I posed a question of Google's own AI search engine .. "Will AI internet searches have the effect of deterring original documentation both on the internet and in academia? The answer I got was below the following line.

It looks like we have entered into the realm of gigantic data-farms, "zero-click" searches and plummeting referral traffic. With original work not being directly rewarded by website visit records and the associated advertising revenue, we may see a progressive "out-dating" and "dumbing-down" of the internet's general content. Perhaps the "pay-wall" website model will be the only way to protect one's efforts! 
__________________________________________________________Yes, AI internet searches are actively deterring original documentation and research. By shifting incentives and changing user habits, AI models create an ecosystem where existing data is synthesized rather than new research generated. [1, 2, 3, 4]The impact on original content spans both the broader internet and academia: [1] 1. The Impact on the Open Web

• Plummeting Referral Traffic: Users often have their questions answered directly on the search engine page (often referred to as "zero-click" search), resulting in a massive drop in clicks to the original publisher’s website.
• The Business Model Threat: Because blogs, journalism, and independent documentation rely heavily on human traffic to sustain operations, falling visitor counts disincentivize creators from investing time and money into producing original, in-depth web content.

• Content Homogenization: Large language models tend to prioritize and summarize widely agreed-upon ideas, meaning niche data, new perspectives, or conditional claims often get averaged out or lost entirely. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

• The "Shortcuts" Trap: Students and early-career researchers frequently rely on tools like ChatGPT to bypass labor-intensive literature reviews or drafting processes, which undermines critical thinking and the authentic synthesis of ideas.
• Model Collapse and Hallucinations: AI platforms have been documented fabricating academic citations, which then get scraped by other models and pollute the collective scientific record.
• Ethical Breaches: Some researchers use generative AI to mass-produce pseudo-original scientific papers, threatening the integrity of academic publishing and the peer-review system. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]