Basically every time AI tries to create its own thing, it's incrementally shittier than whatever it trained on. As more and more AI - produced content floods the internet, it's increasingly training on AI - generated material. The effect is analogous to scanning and printing the same document over and over again, where it ultimately becomes a blurry mess. AI cannot create on its own, it can only modify pre-existing human work.
The article's main solution is to keep some kind of master backup of work labelled as existing before the rise of LLMs, but isn't optimistic of this actually happening. I'm wondering if in a few years the "write TV script" button on chatGPT generates completely unworkable garbage, will studios stop trying to pretend it's a viable replacement for writing staff?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmaUIyvy8E8 (warning: loud)
Basically like saving a JPEG and opening it and saving as a JPEG again x1000. You can never match the original from a lossy source applies to ideas, too, apparently.
Funny you mention JPEG, because a New Yorker article ( original , archive ) makes the general case that LLMs are lossy for language in the same way JPEGs are lossy for images .