The Post-AI Internet Doesn't Look Great
Jordan Goodman argues that generative AI has made much of the internet unusable: search engines inject AI answers instead of direct sources, and social media is flooded with bot-generated slop. He's deactivated most accounts, especially X, and now favors his own website, RSS feeds, and selective YouTube subscriptions for deeper content. His hope: the internet becomes usable again.
The barrier to generate content is trending toward 0, causing noise to drown out the signal.
- gonzalohm
It's not just the internet, it's everything.
Every document I read at work has been AI generated at some capacity. It's becoming so annoying that I have to use AI to create a summary.
I don't know if anyone agrees, but AI generated documents are so verbose and explain things in an overcomplicated way that makes me exhausted after reading. Sometimes I don't even understand what AI is trying to explain
- postalcoder
Don't romanticize the internet. The modern internet has torn society apart at the seams. It's made the world less tolerable and made civic discourse impossible.
If AI forces people to re-weight their priorities (i.e. be less on the internet), perhaps that's a good thing?
- pino83
The Internet began to break at the same day you gave it away to Jeff Zuckermusk.
NOW people start to complain. And it's quite transparent why. ;)
- cdrnsf
Slop is awful, but I've found networks like Mastodon and Bluesky where most users are actively antagonistic to still be enjoyable. Beyond that I've taken to leaning on RSS, private chats and automated filtering where it makes sense. Folks are setting up blogs again too. Most of the bigger platforms are flooded with slop, but their owners are encouraging that. Those spaces weren't healthy to begin with and they aren't now, but the reasons are different.
- keel-control
The same people who would petition against ZKP Internet IDs complaining about the unregulated internet.
You can't have your cake and eat it too...