Proving you're a human on a web flooded with generative AI content
“
The final edge we have over language models is that we can prove we're real humans by showing up IRL with our real human bodies. We can arrange to meet Twitter mutuals offline over coffee. We can organise meetups and events and conferences and unconferences and hangouts and pub nights.
In
Markets for Lemons and the Great Logging Off
, Lars Doucet proposed several knock-on effects from this offline-first future. We might see increased fetishisation of anti-screen culture, as well as real estate price increases in densely populated areas.
For the moment we can still check humanness over Zoom, but live video generation is getting good enough that I don't think that defence will last long.
There are, of course, many people who can't move to an offline-first life; people with physical disabilities. People who live in remote, rural places. People with limited time and caretaking responsibilities for the very young or the very old. They will have a harder time verifying their humanness online. I don't have any grand ideas to help solve this, but I hope we find better solutions than my paltry list.
As the forest grows darker, noisier, and less human, I expect to invest more time in in-person relationships and communities. And while I love meatspace, this still feels like a loss.
“