AI feeding on itself leads to 'information inbreeding,' which can cause models to collapse. Journalism could be the lifeline! News organizations provide a rich variety of training data that enhances large language models, but this resource is finite. If we consider AI as a living organism, there comes a time when it has consumed all available human-generated information — and this will be accelerated if we don’t have a sustainable model for journalism. At that point, the AI may depend solely on synthetic, AI-generated data, creating a closed loop of information. This can be likened to biological inbreeding, where reproduction occurs only within the same genetic pool of data.
Much like how inbreeding weakens an organism's genetics, leading to a less healthy population, AI using only its own data can result in "information inbreeding”, which is most commonly referred as model collapse. This leads to a decline in the richness, diversity, and quality of AI's output, similar to the health deterioration seen in biological inbreeding.
Information inbreeding can extend beyond AI, influencing society by creating uniform, AI-generated information that lacks human perspective. This may cause the public to have a limited and repetitive perspective, hindering how connect and evolve together — creating a world stuck in a loop of monotonous, unoriginal thinking.
That’s why AI companies must have a vested interest in the sustainability of diverse information sources like journalism. This is not only ethically sound, but also the best strategic bet in the long run. Without diverse, fresh, human-driven data, tech companies risk endangering the well-being of their models and leading to stagnant or even regressive AGI development.