What to Do About the Junkification of the Internet

Besides the infinite social media maelstrom1 and the continuously growing commercialization of the web2, we will soon have to deal with an avalanche of AI-generated content3 as well. The corners of the internet cultivated by individuals are important for its vitality and may even become critical to the very survival of a humane online ecosystem. Ot... See more

“The internet, as we have known it, has evolved from a quaint, quirky place to a social utopia, and then to an algorithmic reality. In this reality, the primary task of these platforms is not about idealism or even entertainment — it is about extracting as much revenue as possible from human vanity, avarice, and narcissism.”

We’ve seen professional media platforms do this on a smaller scale (e.g. Netflix making originals, etc). But to do this at the scale of an open creation platform, such as TikTok or Instagram, platforms won’t be able to rely on humans. They’ll instead need to rely on machines to create AI-generated media, or as my friend Matt Hartman calls it, synth... See more