AI Is Causing Signal Collapse Everywhere All at Once

The author argues that AI cheaply fakes the signals we rely on as decision shortcuts—GitHub stars and READMEs, grades and autograders, writing quality in peer review—undermining them all at once rather than through slow erosion. Drawing on signaling theory, he warns this risks a "market for lemons" in open source, education, and research, and surveys responses from trust networks and new signals to AI-assisted evaluation, guardians of trust, and rethinking the underlying systems.