Revisiting RSS Feeds

Some years ago it seemed like RSS feeds were the future of web publishing. Each site would have an RSS feed, and users would read articles each day from their favorite sites as the RSS feeds were updated.

But something happened. RSS feed support was removed from web browsers, and RSS feed readers were discontinued. It seemed like RSS feeds were just a relic of the past. But with the rise of AI-generated text, I wonder: could RSS feeds that are written by humans become a way to avoid AI-generated text in search engines?

These days, if you want to read AI-generated text, you have many options—it is everywhere. It may be difficult to find human-written text content in the oncoming flood of AI slop.

I added an RSS feed to this site, for the first time in years. I even validated that it is a correctly-formatted XML file. I downloaded a feed reader and it works correctly on the new RSS file—perhaps RSS feeds can make a comeback and provide a way for readers to avoid AI-generated text.