> But the slop tide threatens some of the key functions of the web, clogging search results with nonsense, overwhelming small institutions like Clarkesworld, and generally polluting the already fragile information ecosystem of the internet.
Forget the hype. The real achievement of AI will be to destroy the internet, at least the Wikipedia-esqe mode of pseudonymous online collaboration producing serviceable and easily-accessible knowledge at a low price. Silicon Valley will destroy its most successful creation.
If we're lucky, we'll return to reprise of a pre-1995 information ecosystem, run by very offline in-person contacts where personal reputation keeps the slop in check.
There’s a certain number of people whose life consists of what is “more effort to skip than it is to do”. They’re easily led to possessions, beliefs, habits, occupations and diversions that others would find empty. Those people will buy Live Laugh Love hangings, eat American cheese slices, read Rod McKuen, watch Friends reruns and laugh out loud, frown at anything that sounds like thinking, and they will keep browsing the Web no matter how vapid the content, without an ad blocker.
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