I wrote this essay to capture how I feel about the current state of the internet and share a potential solution. The tl;dr is I'm saddened and scared in equal

I wrote this essay to capture how I feel about the current state of the internet and share a potential solution. The tl;dr is I'm saddened and scared in equal measure by the rise of bots, and I think we need to do something new in order to preserve any vestige of human-to-human digital communication. My proposal is that we create invite-only networks where every account traces back through a chain of human trust. If a bot gets in, you prune the branch: remove it and every account it invited. The threat of losing your account (and your invitees losing theirs) creates real social accountability and makes moderation at scale practical. There are kinks with the idea of course like the risk of false flags, witch hunts, and slow growth, but AI detection and CAPTCHAS are in a losing arms race with LLMs.