Post #946996

2026-03-18 19:23 UTC

I&#39;m concerned about what the proliferation of #LLM agents is doing to communal knowledge, and my mind keeps drawing parallels between what we see happening here and disasters that farming malpractices caused in the early to mid 20th century. In a way, we are repeating the same errors, just with a different medium. Warnings from experts are being ignored, recommended practices are being skipped in favour of expediency and short-term gain. Are we witnessing the making of the first digital Dust Bowl?

Replies (7)

@darkling@mstdn.social 2026-04-05 13:50

@claus I'm afraid I don't have a lot to add to the metaphor, except for the word "monoculture". I think that the few visible pieces of the net that aren't based on one of a few huge monolithic global platforms are going to survive better, with less soil erosion.

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@sf105@mastodonapp.uk 2026-04-05 14:26

@claus my thought too https://mastodonapp.uk/@sf105/116296935317944020

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@3janeTA@beige.party 2026-04-05 14:28

@claus if only, if only - Stanley yelnats

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@ahasty@techhub.social 2026-04-05 14:52

@claus I think the knowledge gap we are already creating about how technology works will only be exacerbated by increased reliance on LLMs. How long will it take before the foundations crumble and we end up pre-industrialization.

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@JeremyMallin@autistics.life 2026-04-05 15:36

@claus Yes.

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@mason@partychickens.net 2026-04-05 16:24

@claus Thank you for that. The dust bowl is the perfect analogy. I'm teaching my kids to trust older books and to only trust web information if it's from earlier than 2022, or if it is provably not slop.

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@lemgandi@mastodon.social 2026-04-05 20:17

@claus Sam Altman Trofim Lysenko Hmm.

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