I want to know where they think this will go, because there is an obvious and looming problem: the content–the library–wasn’t made or at least hosted for free.

Somebody set up a website to host the interactions between people who knew things and people who wanted to learn things. The people exchanging information often got as much as they gave, and the person hosting the forum typically sold ads or information about the people participating in the discussions. The result was a virtuous cycle where content gets made and everyone is happy.

Now all those sites are scraped, and their information is regurgitated by slop bots into a “zero click search” where the creators of the information have no role, the seekers of information never encountered the source, and the hosts never get their slice of the pie. OK, well that works for now, but what about when something new is made and there’s no forum to talk about it because all forums get scraped into the slop machine? How will the slop center learn? Are we supposed to expect the AI companies will spend time meticulously testing how best to DIY a mass spectrometer or whatever?

Every year, take the 500 wealthiest people and…