A preprint study released by researchers from Imperial College London, Stanford University and the Internet Archive reveals that roughly 35 percent of websites launched between 2022 and 2025 rely on AI-generated or AI-assisted content. The analysis shows that AI‑written pages carry a markedly higher positive sentiment, making the web feel artificially upbeat. The same work finds that AI content reduces ideological diversity, while several expected side effects—such as a rise in misinformation or a drop in external linking—did not materialize. The findings challenge common assumptions about the impact of large language models on online discourse. Read more →

At least 23 prominent news organizations, including The New York Times and USA Today, have begun blocking the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine crawler. Publishers say the archive is being used by artificial‑intelligence firms to harvest copyrighted articles for training language models, a practice they claim violates copyright law. The move threatens the Wayback Machine’s role as a public record of the web, prompting debate among journalists, technologists and the archive’s operators about how to balance content protection with historical preservation. Read more →