AI Flood Narrows Web Semantic Diversity

A large and rapidly growing share of newly published web pages are AI‑generated or AI‑assisted (the paper reports ~35% by mid‑2025), and this influx is associated with a measurable decline in the variety of meanings and topics expressed across the web even if basic factual accuracy metrics are not yet detectably harmed. That shift also coincides with a rise in uniformly positive sentiment in AI‑assisted content, suggesting systematic stylistic steering. — If true, the trend changes how search, journalism, political persuasion, and cultural production operate online because a narrower semantic field makes discovery, nuance, and contestation harder and amplifies uniform messaging.