The slow dehumanizing uncaring drift we’ve seen occur from author to “content creator”, has shaped a world where the “content” matters most, where the person is ignored and unsupported. And once they’re just a “content creator” they no longer have any value in being human. A machine “content creator”, a generative model, becomes easy to accept and reach for. And the process of severing author from material is complete. Only the content remains, any route of support to the creator is now gone.

I fear the future of the web is a division between two philosophies. That it is a place where people go to find things made by people who care OR that it is a slowly stagnating database to be queried, mined, and deconstructed so that a person can be given something generated by a machine run by people who don’t care at all (except for money).

The further we let the line between author and material drift the more we get just “content”. And the closer we get to the second nightmare.