The Internet Archive is a nonprofit digital library dedicated to preserving the world’s knowledge and providing free access to it for everyone. Founded in 1996, it houses millions of books, webpages, videos, audio recordings, software files, and more — all stored for long-term public use. Best known for the Wayback Machine, which lets users browse historical snapshots of websites, the Archive aims to ensure that the internet’s cultural record isn’t lost to time.
The Internet Archive is dramatically broadening its mission: in addition to saving static websites, its Wayback Machine now captures AI-generated content too — including ChatGPT answers and Google’s AI-powered search summaries. The nonprofit has a team of librarians and engineers who daily run hundreds of prompts through chatbots and archive both the inputs and outputs, aiming to preserve not just the web, but how we increasingly interact with AI. This shift reflects the Archive’s vision of recording our evolving digital lives — not just what we publish, but how we converse online.
Question: Do you currently preserve anything like photos, letters or other specific memories? How do you feel about the idea that every conversation or interaction online could be permanently recorded? If you could preserve one aspect of your digital life for the future, what would it be and why?
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