The internet copying machine is powered by AI

We are just cogs in the internet copy machine. When copies are abundant, they become worthless. It's time to exit the machine.

I’ve heard once that the internet is a copying machine where users just copy and paste other people content, sometimes with minor modifications.

The 1% internet rule would probably confirm this, as most people are not creators, and 99% are just viewing, commenting, sharing, etc.

Open the average profile on any social network, and you will observe that most interactions are likes, shares, and comments. Occasionally there is a quick post, copying an idea from a book or a quote.

With the advent of AI chatbots, there is even less incentive to think, write, and create long-form original content.

The time spent thinking and writing a copied post is usually less than 15 minutes, and often much less. How much does it take to share or re-tweet something? Youtube is littered with quick remixes and hot takes. It takes less time to comment on an existing video than it takes to create something from scratch.

AI takes this to another level - it’s even faster now to take an input (e.g. a Tweet) and produce a quick Twitter thread with ChatGPT, or to take an existing Medium article and remix it with ChatGPT and then re-publish it.

The users are buying it, as the content seems legit. Most people don’t care and don’t look for the original. A copy with a 1% modification is just fine.

The internet is indeed a copy machine. It’s just getting faster and better, and we are just cogs in that machine, driven by AI modules, churning out the same copies over and over again, sometimes with slight modifications.

How to exit the copy machine? create unique, long-form content and spend significant time on every creation. Make it authentic.

“When copies are super abundant, they become worthless. Stuff that can’t be copied becomes scarce and valuable.” — Kevin Kelly