AI Megathread

[Faraday]

Major newspapers post a summer section of AI slop that includes, among other things, a summer reading list for kids with imaginary books (complete with imagined summaries).

We’re Focused on the Wrong A.I. Problem in Journalism
It’s not bots writing the news. It’s the bots reading it

Apart from the obvious debacle, I think that article has a good take on the second-order effects of GenAI that many don’t consider.

• Most “free” internet sites are free because they have ads.
• As more people get their content from AI-generated slop like ChatGPT, the only people coming to sites are AI bots.
• Nobody’s going to pay to advertise to bots.
• Ad money dries up.
• Site goes behind a paywall, or (if it can’t sustain itself with subscriptions) no longer exists.

We’re already seeing more paywalls, and the problem will only get worse.