I think in the next five years the internet will change drastically. Walled gardens, invite only, and companies that verify you're a human (I.E. use government identification).
There is now no way to tell if somebody online in a human or a robot. Even video/zoom/voice is no longer a distinguishable.
> verify you're a human
There could be a technology that cryptographically ensures that each letter/character came from a physical keypress/touch from a human when you want to interact with a human online in written form, but then again a robot could also be pressing the physical switches or interacting with a touchscreen. Perhaps this technology could handle copying/pasting too as long as the text originally came from a human.
I hope we'll develop more robust mechanisms for detecting non-human generated content (including text) that aren't only enforceable by law (e.g. labeling AI-generated content in the EU). Apple Reference Image is one of the steps in this direction.
I actually no joke had the idea of making this in Rust. Basically store snapshots of the history alongside an eventlog (binary file containing compressed chronological input events).
But the problem with this is that someone could write an agent to mimic a human. And if there is a financial incentive to prove that you're not AI, which there always will be, it is inevitable.
I've considered learning to handwrite to write my first drafts like that. But then I could use an AI to generate realistic looking scans of handwriting.
I guess I could physically mail the originals to a third party verifier. That's what it may come down to for creatives.
At the end of the day I see no path to human victory in a digital world.
It's kind of like a human moving to a planet with a nitrogen atmosphere. We have to wear a space suit to survive. No matter how much we slim it down, it's still a system on top of our existing systems.
The internet is the same. We have to put a digital suit on our analog meat to explore a digital world that is becoming crowded with evolving digital natives, and those natives are rapidly becoming smarter and better than us in these spaces.
The solution is simple, if unpalateable: No restrictions, but if its ever detected you are running a bot, you are punished in a way that ruins your life, without exception.
Are you the global government that is going to enforce this law? How do you establish identity? How can identity be revoked? How do you keep it from being an authoritarian nightmare?
I live 20 minutes metro ride away from the best coffee shop the entire Asia Pacific (awarded 2026), Only Coffee Project in Crows Nest, Sydney. And it's really, really good. But that level of quality is not particularly unique here.
Sydney and Melbourne are known to have the best coffee in the world on average. Italian immigrants came over and took what the Italians started and perfected it. McDonald's McCafe was conceptualised and started in Melbourne in 1993, because of Melbourne's strong coffee scene. Australia is the only country that Starbucks failed in, because the coffee here is already too good.
Having said all of this, I still think that about 2/3 of coffee being made by baristas in Sydney is undrinkable. If the beans aren't poor quality or stored incorrectly, the barista will use tap water that is too hard or soft, grind the beans on the wrong setting, over or underextract, overheat the milk until it denatures, not wipe out the previous grind from the portafilter (leading to an ugly, bitter flavour), and do many other little things that ruin the coffee.
I can literally walk into most coffee shops and hear the milk frother "screaming" as the proteins are being denatured. This is the coffee snob capital of the world, and most people still drink terrible coffee without giving it a second thought.
The average consumer doesn't have enough knowledge to have good taste. It's tragic. It sucks. We would have a better world if people cared just a tiny bit more about the things they consume. But they don't, because there isn't enough time and energy in their life to dedicate to truly looking into something.
And this is why I think that there will unfortunately be a demand for AI art. I don't want this to be the case. I hate it. I hope you do too. I hope we all demand higher standards from the art, culture, and goods that we consume.
But as long as people drink bad coffee, they'll read AI slop and recommend it to their friends. It's just how it is.