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Shining a light on the digital dark age

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Re: Shining a light on the digital dark age

#71

Post by jay_kyburz »

bottlepalm wrote: post #42

With AI we have a real chance of 'losing the past' as in we won't be able to tell fact from fiction. The bar to modify images, video, and text form the past will be so low that everyone will do it. And on top of that, coming autonomous agents will do be creating and modifying information at rates we just won't be able to keep up with. I'd say we should sign everything we can now, anything created from 2023 onward is…

Its kind of a fun thought, but the past will become more like the future, we can guess what probably happened, we'll never really know for sure. Just like I probably know what will happen tomorrow, but I'll never be sure.

Re: Shining a light on the digital dark age

#72

Post by myth_drannon »

maverick2007 wrote: post #4

I've been noticing this a lot lately in one of my little hobbies of Halloween events. There's so much history from events in the early 2000s that has been lost. So many links in ancient web forums that 404 and aren't in the Internet archive. Info from the 2010s is much better but still missing a lot of media. As an individual, I certainly don't have the resources of some of the organizations listed in this article bu…

On the other hand, most public text files from 80's and 90's are still here.

Re: Shining a light on the digital dark age

#73

Post by rolobio »

imtringued wrote: post #38
rolobio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will probably end up being the most popular things, the most viewed or read. More copies of it, more likely to be archived. This reminds me of books. I’m sure the majority of books from over a hundred years ago are lost because they weren’t popular. We haven’t really noticed their absence…

Absence? Technically we haven't even noticed their presence!

Absolutely. I wonder what percent of tweets or blog posts are even seen by one human?

Re: Shining a light on the digital dark age

#74

Post by colinsane »

cj wrote: post #37
rolobio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will probably end up being the most popular things, the most viewed or read. More copies of it, more likely to be archived. This reminds me of books. I’m sure the majority of books from over a hundred years ago are lost because they weren’t popular. We haven’t really noticed their absence…

> I’m sure the majority of books from over a hundred years ago are lost Especially if you include independently published books that weren't widely circulated. I wonder what percentage of total books this is. My grandfather published a book before he passed away. It was never sold online or in any big retail stores. Once the last hard copy is lost, it's gone forever.

> Once the last hard copy is lost, it's gone forever.

i believe the Library of Congress will archive that book for you if you mail them a hard copy. assuming it has a ISBN, you’re in the US, etc.

Re: Shining a light on the digital dark age

#75

Post by DoingIsLearning »

theragra wrote: post #50

My story is simple: I supported important historical site, but due to war and personal issues I was not able to transfer money to .ru zone registrar. I have the data, but domain was lost.

If it has historic value, you can upload the data for free to archive.org to avoid data loss.

.

Re: Shining a light on the digital dark age

#76

Post by TeMPOraL »

tough wrote: post #56
nighthawk454 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is that really any different than the rest of history? maybe blindly trusting recordings is a bubble.

Is good to remind that history is always written by the winner side by necessity. Also they usually like to burn any -history- or -culture- of the loosing side and adapt their customs to their new ones and call it a day, erasing history pretty much, as much of it as they can at least. YMMV

This is different, because:

- You usually can attribute history written by a victor to said victor;

- There's only so much control a victor has over what's being kept by the monks, librarians, museum curators and individuals, and what of it will resurface once they're gone.

With AI, we're not talking about alternative history, but rather about infinite, arbitrary alternative histories that can't be told apart from the real one.

Re: Shining a light on the digital dark age

#77

Post by kamel3d »

izzydata wrote: post #18

I think there is something to be said about what is worth archiving. I don't know what it is that should be said though. It seems weird to me that as a society we might be saving things such as a 10 hour video of white noise for another 100 years rather than some personal blogs. What is and isn't worth saving?

It would be very interesting for us to learn about something in ancient Egypt that is equivalent to white noise today. I think the issue of storage should be solved and made abundant. We should not be worrying about what to save, but rather what if we cannot save.

Re: Shining a light on the digital dark age

#78

Post by grotorea »

aziaziazi wrote: post #45
rolobio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will probably end up being the most popular things, the most viewed or read. More copies of it, more likely to be archived. This reminds me of books. I’m sure the majority of books from over a hundred years ago are lost because they weren’t popular. We haven’t really noticed their absence…

When you publish a book or magazine in France you’re required to give 2 copies to the national library for archive purpose. Doesn't something like that exist in other countries?

Does that applies to all books, even if you have 10 copies printed and distribute them privately?

Re: Shining a light on the digital dark age

#79

Post by numtel »

jawns wrote: post #21

One area where I expect this digital rot to have significant effects is with obituaries. It will likely frustrate the next few generations of genealogists hunting for records of early 21st century ancestors. Obituaries that appeared in print newspapers during the 20th century were easily disseminated and decentrally archived (typically by loved ones and libraries), making them relatively rot-tolerant. Distribution is…

For these kinds of things that don't take a ton of data, a blockchain is a great place to store them for a long time for one upfront fee.

Re: Shining a light on the digital dark age

#80

Post by pro-kythera »

imtringued wrote: post #32

Oh I know. There is an easy solution to this. Just sell the information for Bitcoin and use Bitcoin as a store of value and then in the future buy the information back using the store of value feature of Bitcoin. (Cough, someone still has to store the information.)

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