Attention, doomsday preppers: forget the gas masks and Spam, and maybe buy some encyclopedias instead. Now more than ever in our history, humans around the globe — especially those living in wealthy nations — enjoy unfettered access to information, a massive societal shift that’s been increasingly ushered forward by technological progress. And it would be hard, if not impossible, to argue that this hasn’t been a good thing: knowledge, after all, is power. But information doesn’t exist in a utopian vacuum. It’s mediated by a predominantly digital, algorithm-governed ecosystem, where truth and trust are oft-abused currencies and misinformation causes real harm. Bad actors and bad information will always exist, which is why maintaining the general health of that ecosystem — through trust and safety measures, regulation, public information literacy, and so on — is essential. Now, as the result of the onset of widely available generative AI systems, our information world is going through what appears to be a particularly tricky — and potentially destructive — time. Chatbots have already volleyed bad intel back and forth, a presidential candidate has used unmarked synthetic content in a campaign ad, and information landlords are hurrying to curb AI’s impacts while simultaneously rushing generative AI products to market. It’s all pretty messy, not to mention uncertain. And so, like anyone who might store canned food and weapons in a bunker to prepare for a more physical apocalypse, AI reporter Benj Edwards, as he detailed in a recent essay for Ars Technica, decided to…Guy Buys Physical Encyclopedia Set to Prepare for Information Doomsday