As AI overtakes the web, five writers reflect on how far it’s fallen and what comes next.
What Was the Internet?
As AI overtakes the web, five writers reflect on how far it’s fallen and what comes next.
AI Slop and the End of Knowledge
As an early fan of the internet, I was amazed that all the knowledge of the world was becoming available to everyone, everywhere, all the time. But things have changed.
The Impact of AI-Generated Text on the Internet
By mid-2025, roughly 35% of newly published websites were classified as AI-generated or AI-assisted.
How Much of the Internet Is Written With AI?
In a random sample of 10,000 webpages collected in July 2026, one-in-ten show signs of being written or substantially edited by AI.
AI is killing the web. Can anything save it?
The rise of ChatGPT and its rivals is undermining the economic bargain of the internet
An AI Upheaval Is Coming for Media. This Journalist Is Already All In.
AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune’s web traffic in the second half of 2025. Most are written by Nick Lichtenberg.
AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web
I remember, pretty clearly, my excitement over the early World Wide Web. I had been on the internet for a year or two at that point, mostly using IRC, Usenet, and Gopher (along with email, naturall…
The story of this blog so far: 'AI', the death of web dev, and feeling like an outsider
Writing at the end of the world, from Hveragerði, Iceland
AI is eating website traffic, websites are blocking AI – and reliable information is getting harder to find
AI has broken the economic bargain behind the web, and everybody is losing.
Is Google about to destroy the web?
Google says adding more AI to its search engine will rejuvenate the internet. Others predict an apocalypse for websites. One thing is clear: this era of online history is closing.
The AI Aesthetic
Writing about the big beautiful mess that is making things for the world wide web.
"I was forced to use AI until the day I was laid off." Copywriters reveal how AI has decimated their industry
Copywriters were one of the first to have their jobs targeted by AI firms. These are their stories, three years into the AI era.
How Google and AI Nearly Made a Seasoned Reporter Spiral — ProPublica
I thought I had missed something major in my reporting. Turns out I had stumbled into an AI-fueled feedback loop that involved a real LLC’s fictional website and a search engine that’s thrusting unreliable answers on users.
Abundance vs. Scarcity: Who Controls the Internet After AI?
AI is straining the open web, forcing a choice between abundance with redistribution and scarcity built on paywalls, writes Paul Keller.
My journey to the heart of the forgotten internet
Slowly but surely, huge swaths of the internet are vanishing. But the artefacts of the early web are still out there, and they have lessons for the future.
"The forces that are now shaping AI are the same forces that turned the open internet into monopolistic platforms, converted peer-to-peer participation into precarious labor, and enclosed the digital commons. They are now threatening to capture and enclose thought itself." osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/qahd3_v1/
