Andrew Gates

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

You have noticed it. ChatGPT feels dumber than it used to. Your prompts that worked six months ago produce worse results now. The writing sounds flatter. The ideas sound safer. The internet itself feels like it is shrinking. Every article reads the same. Every email sounds the same. Every answer sounds like it was written by the same voice.

You thought it was you. It is not you.

Researchers at Oxford and Cambridge published a paper in Nature proving what is happening. They call it Model Collapse.

Here is the mechanism in one sentence. AI trained on AI-generated data gets dumber every generation until it forgets what real human data looked like.

The internet is filling with AI-generated content. Blog posts. Articles. Reviews. Comments. Social media. AI companies scrape the internet to train the next generation of models. Which means the next generation of AI is being trained on the output of the current generation.

Each cycle loses information. Not randomly. It loses the rarest, most unusual, most creative parts first. The researchers call these the "tails of the distribution." The weird ideas. The unexpected perspectives. The things that made the internet feel human. Those disappear first.

What remains is the average. The safe. The expected. The bland.

Then the next generation trains on that. And loses more. And the next generation trains on that. And loses more. The researchers proved this is not a slow decline. Major degradation happens within just a few iterations. Even when some of the original human data is preserved.

They tested it on large language models. On image generators. On statistical models. The pattern was the same every time. The output converges toward a narrow, flattened version of reality that looks nothing like the original data.

The lead researcher put it plainly. "Large language models are like fire. A useful tool. But one that pollutes the environment."

The pollution is invisible. You cannot see which sentence on the internet was written by a human and which was written by AI. Neither can the AI that is about to train on it. And once the tails are gone, they do not come back. The damage is irreversible.

This is not a prediction anymore. It is a diagnosis.

The internet you grew up on was built by humans writing things no algorithm would have written. Strange, personal, imperfect, alive. That internet is being diluted. One generation of AI at a time. And the models trained on what remains are learning a smaller and smaller version of the world.

Model Collapse is not a technical problem. It is a cultural one. The thing that made the internet worth reading is the thing that disappears first.

[The Random Recruiter @randomrecruiter]

Millennials going through yet another once in a lifetime event

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

@ftmoney Love this @MoiraONeill - is she mortgage free by now too?

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

@ghiblipicture @Fad1878

[Harriet Walker @harrywalker1]

In today's @thetimes, how the childcare crisis is costing women their careers and letting families down, and why last week's budget won't help: https://t.co/yQdHPbs6mu

[Naomi Rovnick 歐蜜 @naomi_rovnick]

A massive NHS worker shortage that lengthens waiting lists and causes a general worker shortage as sick people stay out of work is inflationary. Maybe giving nurses better pay and conditions isn’t so bad for inflation after all then? https://t.co/1HiBTKDHNS

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

This actually ridiculous and shameful. Any danger of some pragmatism?

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

@Fad1878 Haha sure it wasn't as complicated last time. Put booze and food in my mouth please. Hope its good!

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

@Fad1878 Woodstockholm is great (wine bar / tapas type stuff 👌)
[phone]
https://t.co/8P41Mp52ra

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

Can someone like this please? He thinks it's hilarious and will be sad about the current ratio....

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

@michaeljsheen 😬

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

@michaeljsheen Looking forward to your write up!

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

@SofiaHCBBG These are great👌

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

😬

[Ed Hawkins @ed_hawkins]

Choose your climate future.

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

@michaeljsheen Don't click on the health effects then it's all fine 😑

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

@Fad1878 @Jim_Keoghan *Davy Klassen wins league with Ajax.

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

Younger generations are being absolutely trolled at this stage 🤬 Can't pick and choose your taxes when it doesn't impact you.

[Telegraph Politics @TelePolitics]

🟢The younger generation should pay for the Government's net zero pledge instead of current bill-payers who will not benefit from it, a House of Lords committee has said https://t.co/eT9Nci7NSH

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

@Elisabeth_Steyn Out of sight out of mind👌

[Andrew Gates @Gates_Andrew]

This is great 👌 @rebeccaoco

[Rebecca O'Connor @rebeccaoco]

I came up with 22 pension tips and tricks for 2022 - may have tip-peaked early https://t.co/uRDcfnE4UY