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What to Do About the Junkification of the Internet | Social-media companies define how billions of people experience the web. The rise of synthetic content only makes their role more important

Social-media companies define how billions of people experience the web. The rise of synthetic content only makes their role more important.

With the rise of generative AI, there may be an order of magnitude more potential options for platforms to choose from—meaning the creators of each individual video or image will be competing that much more aggressively for audience time and attention. Media organizations, for instance, will not have exponentially more news to report even if they embrace AI tools to speed delivery and reduce costs; as a result, their content will take up proportionally less space. Although there will undoubtedly be attacks that demand urgent attention—by state-created networks of coordinated inauthentic users, by profiteering news-adjacent producers, by leading political candidates —this is not the moment to lose sight of the larger dynamics that are playing out for our attention.

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