We Can't Let AI Writing Take Over the Internet

Derek Thompson · 1 Sept 2026 · derekthompson.org ↗

3 korrents from this piece

Derek Thompson did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Writing is itself an act of thinking, so automating the writing removes the thinking, not just the labor.

Their wordsThe act of writing is an act of thinking, and to automate our paragraphs is to populate our screens with words without filling our minds with the ideas necessary to conceive of them.
Our reading
Bots will soon make up nearly all internet traffic, leaving little human activity online.

Their wordsI think it's not long before 99% of internet traffic is bots.
Our reading
AI-generated writing will match or surpass human writing within about a decade.

Their wordsThere is a good argument that AI writing will be as good as human writing, possibly even surpass human writing within the next decade.