I knew we were truly fucked the moment I realized that even non-AI content on the internet is affected negatively by AI. Take this comment I’m typing out right now. I’m not using AI for it, but the content of what I’m writing is based on experiences I have had with AI - nothing is purely human made anymore.

At one point I had an issue with a tool and searched for it on the web and found someone who looked like a real person describing a similar-ish issue. They mentioned trying a setting but it didn’t work for them. I thought “that setting seems to be what I need”. I searched for that setting on the web and also in the codebase of that tool - zero matches. It was made up. I didn’t use any AI myself, but I still wasted time with an AI hallucination.

Now every time I find something on the web I have to do additional searches to see how many other sources corroborate the information I get from any result. And eventually this too will be pointless.