AI is intensifying two interconnected crises in our information ecosystem.

The first is what Salomé Viljoen calls the "Cylon problem" — the growing indistinguishability between authentic human content and AI-generated material. This creates widespread epistemic instability: people can no longer reliably tell what is real, leading to generalized suspicion, the dismissal of genuine content as fake, and the proliferation of low-quality "slop." The result is a "zombie internet" where AI-generated content dominates engagement without genuine human connection.