AI answers are now appearing on Google searches. I don’t trust them, wonder where they get their data from and always dive in and look for references myself. As an experiment I went into ‘IAsk AI’ with the following question: ‘Who is Jason Monaghan?’
It was pleasing that it identified me as the subject of the question, rather than some rapper or ice hockey player. Perhaps if you, gentle reader, asked the same question it might also lead to me, or perhaps to one of my internet dopplegangers.
The answer was pretty accurate in terms of my career as a writer and archaeologist. It concluded by listing its main sources, namely my Amazon author page, my CWA author page and my website. It missed my years spent working in York in pre-internet years and the decade I spent in offshore finance, which I don’t talk about much. It omitted personal information such as my marital status, children and so forth as I generally keep family stuff off social media. It didn’t scour Facebook or Instagram either and so missed my extensive travelling. It didn’t make use of any other platforms I’m on, including Twitter, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Bookbub, Goodreads.
What appears overall is my public persona, the person I’d like the world to think I am.
Quite deliberately I have segmented my interests on social media, so there is no mention of my gaming hobby despite my participation in many forums online, or the games I’ve created over the years. I asked ‘Who is Doc Monaghan?’ and found some educational publication which wasn’t me, then added ‘gamer’ and found an RPG designer of that name. At a third attempt, being slightly more specific AI found me – as most ‘Doc Monaghan’ games and articles came out in the 1990s or earlier and I took the web page down around 2000 it’s not surprising the internet struggled, but again the search ignored Facebook.
There are lessons here. You can create an ‘internet persona’, especially if it is consistent across different platforms. If something is not on the internet it’s as if it never happened – which in some cases will be a good thing! Your achievements pre-2000 are increasingly likely to be overlooked, so if you’re proud of them make sure there is a modern reference online. It’s worth having a website and also making full use of public databases you can join. You need to make yourself distinctive by establishing a broad digital footprint so you can push those dopplegangers into the background. On the other hand, you can remain internet invisible if you really want to be.
Have a go yourself; who does AI think you are?
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