I can see this as a bleak future for AI, as it consumes its own output, but any bleak future for information writ large (as conflated here with the "misinformation" industry and the often intentionally deceptive output of the NYT) comes from the suppression of material due to copyright attacks and its locking away in archives.<p>I've spent a frustrating few hours recently discovering that I could find any number of interpretations and retrospectives on Francisco Ferrer. But the fact that his schools put out a newsletter, the <i>Bolitín de la Escuela Moderna</i>, which would be the best primary source for learning about it, and is completely inaccessible online, is an example of the way information is still locked away. I read about John R. Coryell's prosecution for obscenity for his six part serial published in Physical Culture beginning in 1906, <i>"Wild Oats, or Growing to Manhood in a Civilized (?) Society"</i>, and I find that I can't read any issues of Physical Culture prior to 1910, because they're not online (looks like obscenity convictions in 1906 are still effective in 2024!) I find any number of books referring to the culture of Mexican photonovelas, and that they sold millions of copies a month during the 70s, and the best selling ones are only preserved by a blogger who is constantly fighting takedown notices, and who was grateful to get the scans that I got from a local garage sale.<p>We're failing to put in the minimal effort to preserve, organize and keep accessible our own culture, even when copyright is not an issue. We have endless legal debates and court cases about having our own laws and court cases available to the public without a rent-seeking intermediary given a trust by corrupt politicians in the past. Everything could be preserved and made accessible at lower cost than a few Marvel movies, or two weeks of Ukraine adventure, yet we don't do it. Where's the campaign for that? Nah, better to whine about "racist, sexist" LLMs. That's the opposite of preservation: our entire history is racist and sexist content. Wiping that clean is <i>Year Zero</i> talk.<p>Our governments prefer reality to be interpreted through intermediaries who will modify it for their sake, or in exchange for payment. Our institutions prefer to be the guardians of information rather than the spreaders of information. That's the problem.<p><i>The Conversation</i> itself is a creepy Australian-based conjunction of shady government and nonprofit funding sources that is explicitly designed to push particular narratives into "mainstream" outlets (which is why all of its articles are Creative Commons licensed.) You'll see this article rewritten in six different ways in other outlets within the week, and it seems to be part of this desperate last push for "misinformation" before the US presidential transition, because Trump made a bunch of campaign promises to destroy the industry. It's all manipulation.