The 'Model Collapse' is Here: AI Training on AI Data is Getting Weird
Researchers warned us about 'Model Collapse'. We thought it was years away. It's happening now. The 2025 web scrape is 50% AI-generated slop, and new models are showing signs of 'inbreeding depression'.
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The 'Habsburg AI' Effect
Just as royal inbreeding led to genetic defects, data inbreeding leads to 'Habsburg AI.' Models are becoming exaggerated caricatures of themselves. They overuse certain words ('delve', 'tapestry', 'testament'), hallucinate more confidently, and lose the nuance of human language. If you train a model on GPT-4 outputs, you don't get GPT-5. You get a dumber, louder GPT-4.
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The Value of Human Data
This has created a bizarre market. 'Pristine' human data (pre-2023 internet) is now more valuable than gold. Companies are digging up old forums, scanning physical books, and buying private email archives just to get data that hasn't been touched by an LLM. Reddit and StackOverflow aren't selling data; they are selling humanity.
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Synthetic Data: The Only Way Out?
To fix this, labs are turning to high-quality synthetic data—data generated by AI but strictly verified by code or humans. It's a race to build the 'filter' that can distinguish between 'smart AI output' and 'dumb AI slop'. If we fail, the intelligence explosion might fizzle out into a feedback loop of garbage.
