Reposted by Robin Droemer
AI has started blocking the Wayback Machine from chronicling the web. Considering that nearly 40% of websites disappear after 10 years, this will enforce a giant loss in collective memory.
the-independent.com
AI’s biggest casualty could be history itself
The Internet Archive is a vital resource that has helped the search for truth in more than one global event, writes Anthony Cuthbertson, but it is in danger of becoming the latest collateral damage of...
![That includes our own political system. The U.S. Constitution is, by most accounts, a brilliant document. But the original Constitution-only four pages long-can be interpreted in many different, and even contradictory, ways. We have, for ample, few constitutional safeguards against filling nominally independent agencies (such as the FBI) with loyalists. Accord- ing to constitutional scholars Aziz Huq and Tom Ginsburg, only the "thin tissue of convention" prevents American presi- dents from capturing the referees and deploying them against opponents. Likewise, the Constitution is virtually silent on the president's authority to act unilaterally, via decrees or execu- tive orders, and it does not define the limits of executive power during crises. Thus, Huq and Ginsburg recently warned that "the constitutional and legal safeguards of [American] democ- racy . . . would prove to be fairly easy to manipulate in the face of a truly antidemocratic leader." If the constitution written in Philadelphia in 1787 is not what secured American democracy for so long, then what did? Many factors mattered, including our nation's immense wealth, a large middle class, and a vibrant civil society. But we believe much of the answer also lies in the development of strong democratic norms. All successful democracies rely on informal rules that, though not found in the constitution or any laws, are widely known and respected. In the case of American democracy, this has been vital.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jg2rdmkvdjatv2xgmvhgausl/bafkreigknu4jfpippznkihflcxbov4b563zn7v2elw3txs4dbaw7ccqtce)
