> this sounds like exactly the arms race that content creators are engaged in until it stops paying
I don't think they're trying to achieve these things at all. Look at the broken incentives you raised in the first part of your response, that's what this is about, and all this is about.
Content creators mostly don't care about how mediocre their output is, and they mostly don't care about how accurate it is either, as long as the clicks keep coming.
We don't need (and can't expect) ChatGPT to "fix" this, the underlying problem is the broken incentives, not the actual quality - or lack of it - in the content.
> Why are people reading mediocre content with questionable accuracy?
How would you answer this?
I don't believe bad incentives explains it fully.
For most people that consume content, accurate information is not a priority. Being entertained, belonging to a group, or satisfying some immediate need or want matter more for most people, most of the time.
It's doubtful that people who consume content will change their wants to prize accuracy (most of the time). Partly, this is because accurate, precise, and/or qualified statements are often boring and hard to follow.
Consider also incentives that drive content creators: 1) the internet means many people can find a platform for many messages (democratization of speech is supposed to be a virtue of the internet) 2) the "freemium" advertising model means that most messages can be financially rewarded, regardless of accuracy
Engagement and financial rewards are much easier to get with lies, drama and controversy than with accuracy, precision, and qualified statements. In my experience, most people cannot find something worth striving for in the modern world, and settle on whatever comes easiest.
> The problem is not: how to quickly and cheaply create content which is marginally less mediocre and marginally more accurate than what we currently have
I'll grant that this is not a problem you're trying to solve. However, this sounds like exactly the arms race that content creators are engaged in until it stops paying.