Any rational observer can admit that the current iteration of the web—and the social fabric woven there—is not what they signed up for. Symptoms of advanced cultural decay can no longer be ignored. This thing is eating itself.

Giants including Meta and Google have been forced to settle massive consumer lawsuits brought over privacy violations and mental health harms allegedly caused by the addictive mechanisms of their platforms. Schools are banning smartphones as multiple countries institute social media restrictions for under-16s. Parents are in a panic about their kids aspiring to careers as social media celebrities, losing themselves in a vast ecosystem of online casinos, or joining extremist movements.

Generative AI, briefly considered an amusing novelty, is now a turbocharged slop engine for the web, filling feeds and comment sections with useless, grotesque content. As humans scroll past headlines about AI taking their jobs, confusing fantasy for reality, and contributing to cognitive decline, any consumer appeal the technology might have is turning to anguish. The data centers that power it have become increasingly unpopular, and politically radioactive.

To be online, many now admit, is to be endlessly manipulated and exploited. In December, Oxford University Press declared rage bait to be the word of the year , noting that use of the term had tripled over the previous 12 months. The lexical spike represented a heightened awareness that monetized social accounts churn out bad-faith takes and extremist content , automating this abusive behavior with generative AI , simply to profit off hostile engagement.

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