Scientists once hoarded pre-nuclear steel; now we’re hoarding pre-AI content

>The archive name comes from a scientific phenomenon from the Cold War era. After nuclear weapons testing began in 1945, atmospheric radiation contaminated new steel production worldwide. For decades, scientists needing radiation-free metal for sensitive instruments had to salvage steel from pre-war shipwrecks. Scientists called this steel "low-background steel." Graham-Cumming sees a parallel with today's web, where AI-generated content increasingly mingles with human-created material and contaminates it.

>Some researchers also worry about AI models training on their own outputs, potentially leading to quality degradation over time—a phenomenon sometimes called "model collapse." But recent evidence suggests this fear may be overblown under certain conditions. Research by Gerstgrasser et al. (2024) suggests that model collapse can be avoided when synthetic data accumulates alongside real data, rather than replacing it entirely. In fact, when properly curated and combined with real data, synthetic data from AI models can actually assist with training newer, more capable models.

https://archive.is/76ba1