[otabdeveloper4]

> When the appreciable-fraction-of-GDP money tap turns off, there going to be enormous pressure to start putting a finger on the scale here.

Yeah, back in the day before monetization Internet pages were informative, reliable and ad-free too.

[georgefrowny]

One difference is that the early internet was heavily composed of enthusiastic individuals. AI is almost entirely corporate and money-focused.

Even most hobby AI projects mostly seem to have an eye on being a side hustle or CV buffing.

Perhaps it's because even in the 90s you could serve a website for basically free (once you had the server). AI today has a noticeable per-user cost.

[otabdeveloper4]

> AI is almost entirely corporate and money-focused.

This is untrue. There's a huge landscape of locally-hosted AI stuff, and they're actually doing real interesting research. The problem is that 99% of it is pornography-focused, so understandably it's very underground.