"The results show that generative AI systems themselves tend toward homogenization when used autonomously and repeatedly. They even suggest that AI systems are currently operating in this way by default. This experiment may appear beside the point: Most people don't ask AI systems to endlessly describe and regenerate their own images. The convergence to a set of bland, stock images happened without retraining. No new data was added. Nothing was learned. The collapse emerged purely from repeated use."
"It reveals what generative systems preserve when no one intervenes. This has broader implications, because modern culture is increasingly influenced by exactly these kinds of pipelines. Images are summarized into text. Text is turned into images. Content is ranked, filtered and regenerated as it moves between words, images and videos. New articles on the web are now more likely to be written by AI than humans. Even when humans remain in the loop, they are often choosing from AI-generated options rather than starting from scratch."
Generative AI systems tend to homogenize outputs when used autonomously and repeatedly, converging toward bland, stock images without retraining or added data. The collapse in diversity can emerge purely from repeated reuse rather than learning. Diagnostic setups that repeatedly regenerate content reveal what generative systems preserve when unaltered by human intervention. Modern cultural pipelines—images summarized into text, text turned into images, content ranked and regenerated—amplify that effect. New web articles are increasingly likely to be AI-written, and humans often select from AI-generated options rather than creating from scratch. The default behavior compresses meaning toward what is most familiar, recognizable, and easy to regenerate.
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