14 November 2025: THE "INTERNET RESPONSIBILITY ACT, 20XX": PART 2

(Continued from PART 1)

But, it is not only the energy resource cost that might make future-people 
question why we once allowed unfettered access to the internet. The other 
costs to society are yet to fully play out, but early studies indicate 
regular use of LLMs could lead to cognitive decline at a neurological 
level[1]. This is only one example: on a platform such as sdf.org, I doubt 
it's necessary for me to spell out the myriad other potential harms to 
society which could be brought to bear.

Let us suppose, then, that a body of thorough research conclusively showed 
that freely public access to the internet was unsustainable, and that nation 
states chose to create laws to temper internet access. What might an 
"Internet Responsibility Act" look like?

Perhaps, as mentioned in Part 1, it would take the form of carefully 
rationed, time-based access. Persons might be allocated amounts of time 
according to their educational status: a university student might be granted 
additional minutes for research purposes than someone in high school, but less 
than their professor. Or perhaps, rather than being broadly mapped to the 
stage of education, a person would have to sit exams in order to be granted 
an access license, in a similar way as is done for driving or aviation.

Perhaps laws would be put into place to reduce the level of data storage 
required for the internet to be sustained: standardised layouts with an 
emphasis on text, images compressed and removed altogether where possible 
(*wink*). Domains would have to justify their storage space, and be heavily 
fined or even taken offline if found in breach of it.

Perhaps internet usage would become entirely restricted to supporting only 
the most essential infrastructure, with alternative technologies such as 
low-frequency radio (LoRa) being adopted to fulfil functions such as instant 
messaging.

These are only some suggestions off the top of my head, and each 
approach/combination of approaches has its drawbacks. Particularly given that 
in most places in the world, it's possible (if not permitted) to access any 
content of one's choice, these ideas for regulation sound laughably draconian 
and impossible to enforce. 

And wouldn't implementing such a thing be to destroy the very spirit of the 
internet? 

And yet... I wonder if we might live to see such times. Not out of political
popularity, or of authoritarian censorship, but out of a simple necessity to 
keep the network running at all. Maybe by then, the unfettered access we 
presently enjoy will have devolved the human brain back into goo, and we 
won't be aware enough to miss it.

Or maybe we can somehow, as a species, begin to take whatever steps may be 
needed to keep our invention alive and safely sustainable. 

I hope we do.

Until the next one,

lilac


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[1] https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/