A web that no longer looks at itself
For decades, the internet was a place where images arrived. Photos from travels. Illustrations from artists. Posters, drawings, accidents, mistakes, styles.
Today, something has shifted.
Images no longer arrive. They are produced.
At scale. At speed. Often without ever being looked at.
And increasingly, they are produced from other produced images.
The internet is no longer observing reality. It is observing itself.
When AI becomes the main visual source
AI models learn from existing images. That is their foundation.
But the balance is changing.
Generated images now circulate faster, wider, and more cheaply than human-made visuals. They fill search results, marketplaces, social feeds, inspiration boards, and stock platforms.
Which means something unprecedented is happening: AI is being trained on content that AI already created. Not exclusively. But increasingly.
This feedback loop doesn’t create errors. It creates averages.
Creative flattening is not a crash
This is important: We are not talking about a collapse of creativity.
There is no sudden disappearance of talent. No visual apocalypse.
What we’re seeing is subtler. Edges soften. Visual risks disappear.
Styles converge.
Images become technically impressive, instantly readable, emotionally neutral.
Everything is “good”. Very little is necessary.
This is what we mean by creative flattening.
The illusion of infinite originality
Paradoxically, the more images are generated, the harder it becomes to identify something truly distinct. AI can remix endlessly. But remixing requires a source.
When the source pool becomes dominated by synthetic content, originality starts to recycle itself. You don’t get repetition. You get homogenisation. Different prompts. Same feeling.
And because these images are optimized to perform — to please, to convert, to attract — they slowly train us to expect less friction, less discomfort, less personality.
Why this matters for artists and brands
For independent artists, studios, and small brands, this isn’t a philosophical issue. It’s practical. Visibility depends on contrast.
When everything looks polished, clean, and algorithmically pleasing, standing out becomes harder — not because quality dropped, but because difference faded.
The internet doesn’t lack images. It lacks point of view. And point of view doesn’t scale well.
Memory versus generation
AI can generate visuals. But it cannot generate why something exists.
It doesn’t know why a place mattered. Why a poster stayed on a wall.
Why an image became iconic despite technical flaws.
Memory is not data. It’s lived context. When images are created without memory, they function, but they don’t linger.
They pass through feeds perfectly. Then disappear.
What remains human
This is not a call to reject AI. It is a reminder of where its limits are.
AI is powerful at execution. At speed. At iteration.
But it cannot replace intention. It cannot originate meaning.
It cannot feel why something should exist. That responsibility remains human.
Why we believe this phase will mature
Every technological shift goes through excess.Photography did.
Desktop publishing did. Digital stock did.
We are currently in the overproduction phase.
At some point, saturation forces selection. Not by banning tools,
but by re-valuing authorship, clarity, and honesty.
When everything is possible, what matters is not how something is made, but why.
A pause, not a conclusion
The internet eating its own images is not the end of creativity.
It is a moment of confusion. A moment where quantity overtakes meaning.
Where speed overtakes intention.
And moments like this don’t end with disappearance, they end with redefinition.
What survives is rarely the most optimized. It’s the most sincere.
