Preserving the Web in the Age of AI

About this episode

The episode discusses the challenges of preserving the web's historical record in the context of AI's impact on information access and control.

As artificial intelligence reshapes how information is created, accessed, and controlled, a quieter crisis is emerging: the potential loss of the web’s historical record. In this episode, tech writer Mike Masnick , Mark Graham of the Internet Archive, and public interest tech and media lawyer Kendra Albert come together for a timely conversation on what it means to preserve the web in the age of AI. As publishers move to block AI scraping, they’re also increasingly restricting access to archiving tools like the Wayback Machine, raising urgent questions about who gets to access the past, and whether it will remain accessible at all. If preserving the web is increasingly treated as a threat, what happens to our collective memory? And what will it take to ensure that knowledge remains accessible in an AI-driven world? This conversation was recorded on 4/28/2026. Watch the full video recording at: https://archive.org/details/preserving-the-web-in-the-age-of-ai Check out all of the Future Knowledge episodes at https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge

People in this episode

Guests: Mike Masnick, Mark Graham, Kendra Albert

Topics covered

• web preservation
• artificial intelligence
• information access
• historical record
• collective memory

Keywords

• web preservation
• AI
• historical record
• information access
• collective memory
• Wayback Machine
• archiving tools

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Internet Archive, Wayback Machine

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