As I had to navigate this new web more and more, I began noticing that being able to tell the signs of whether a publication is legitimate or AI slop was not so different on its face than being able to tell whether that link to a repository of videogame content is giving virus.

Across the board, it’s becoming increasingly hard to tell. For me and countless others, what used to be rote Internet usage has now turned into a nightmarish amount of wasted time spent discerning what is and isn’t real.