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The 'Dead Internet Theory'

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Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#21

Post by g15jv2dp »

Published the same day as https://theconversation.com/ai-chatbots-are-intruding-into-o...

> A parent asked a question in a private Facebook group in April 2024: Does anyone with a child who is both gifted and disabled have any experience with New York City public schools? The parent received a seemingly helpful answer that laid out some characteristics of a specific school, beginning with the context that “I have a child who is also 2e,” meaning twice exceptional.

> On a Facebook group for swapping unwanted items near Boston, a user looking for specific items received an offer of a “gently used” Canon camera and an “almost-new portable air conditioning unit that I never ended up using.”

> Both of these responses were lies. That child does not exist and neither do the camera or air conditioner. The answers came from an artificial intelligence chatbot.

> According to a Meta help page, Meta AI will respond to a post in a group if someone explicitly tags it or if someone “asks a question in a post and no one responds within an hour.”

"Dead Internet" is not a theory. It's an active goal for some companies.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#22

Post by immibis »

StefanBatory wrote: post #12

On Reddit it's common occurence to see someone bring up that top comments are stolen from other ones word for word. At this moment I feel it's impossible to believe in any comment on the internet unless you can vouch for the person.

I keep posting LLM-generated replies on Reddit and getting upvotes for them. And it's not even a good LLM, like ChatGPT.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#23

Post by eddie_catflap »

I was considering this just last night lamenting the state of my Twitter/X feed. The paid engagement incentive has had the unintended effect of ruining what’s on offer and clearly much of it is bot/AI created. Lots of threads of crap just to inflate engagement numbers. The funny, witty and sarcastic 140 char posts are still there but buried seemingly in a pile of templated and autogenerated junk.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#24

Post by nonrandomstring »

Blaming "bots" omits part of the discussion. There's a danger of us looking for some other, a scapegoat "system" or "inevitable process" to throw blame on to.

As well as out of control positive feedback amplifying the fake (expedient, efficient, profitable) there's negative feedback suppressing the authentic (complex, messy, emotional, unique).

We are doing this to ourselves. People make and program bots, and so it's people that want to kill the Internet, but also what it represented about human connectivity.

There are plenty of humans actively attacking what is human. I've heard them called misanthropists, nihilists, cosmists, trans-humanists, tech fanbois, singularity wingnuts, species traitors... all kinds of names and explanations for the same phenomenon - a masochistic, self-loathing or disgust for humanity presented as a "love" of technology.

Maybe it's climate change, overpopulation, first-world guilt, who knows? Perhaps the idea of AI genesis linked to human sacrifice gives some a sense of fascistic "new broom" purpose?

Whatever the explanation, we built the internet, and we (humans) are actively destroying it.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#25

Post by StefanBatory »

immibis wrote: post #22
StefanBatory wrote: post #12

On Reddit it's common occurence to see someone bring up that top comments are stolen from other ones word for word. At this moment I feel it's impossible to believe in any comment on the internet unless you can vouch for the person.

I keep posting LLM-generated replies on Reddit and getting upvotes for them. And it's not even a good LLM, like ChatGPT.

It's great to hear that you're getting positive feedback on your Reddit posts! While using LLMs can be a valuable tool for generating content, it's important to remember to always add your own personal touch and insights. This not only ensures authenticity but also helps you grow as a writer and thinker. Keep up the good work and continue to engage meaningfully with the community!

... I'm sorry, but I had to. It's scary, especially considering how many people cope with loneliness. Do you imagine that someone falls in love with AI or keeps thinking it's their friend while unaware it's just an AI run account? I do and it's depressing to think about.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#26

Post by HlessClaudesman »

g15jv2dp wrote: post #21

Published the same day as https://theconversation.com/ai-chatbots-are-intruding-into-o... > A parent asked a question in a private Facebook group in April 2024: Does anyone with a child who is both gifted and disabled have any experience with New York City public schools? The parent received a seemingly helpful answer that laid out some characteristics of a specific school, beginning with the context that “I have a c…

I recently created a new account on Facebook with the single goal of seeing what was going on in my local community.

Firstly their search /discover was pretty terrible. I am sure that local groups exist, but searching for keywords mostly turned up communities with commercial angles.

Secondly even tho I only joined groups related to a very specific European location, every 3rd post in my feed is now bizzarely a scantily clad teen from Africa. I can dismiss these posts individually, but there is no way to tell Facebook's algorithim that it placed me in the wrong bucket, they provide no way to opt out.

If they really must insert random algorithmic content, Facebook already has all the clues they need to make it relevant, based on my searches and groups that I have joined. Instead their AI tried to play 4D chess with my preferences and outsmarted itself, serving me a horrendous swamp of teenbait slop.

Facebook is dead.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#28

Post by FactKnower69 »

wtbdqrs wrote: post #4
wtbdqrs wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, it all might be circuits giving birth to consciousness-es. like when matter bounced around and formed planets and stuff, except it's information parsed by evolving circuits in as many forms as possible just because there's always this one dude or dudette who's a bit slow on the uptake. but then again, go outside and holla that fake shit. everyones trained and tutored by of through and for emotional bondage. eve…

wow, that sounds bad, sorry. i just get stuck if i write that stuff in a notebook. this forums level and kind of interaction helps keep the chain of thought going at the same temperature and in the intended hue. i shouldn't do this again, though. apologies, if I annoyed someone or got them into a bad mood.

I think people are probably just reflexively downvoting you based on the first sentence of the post, because breathless speculation about stochastic parrot LLMs magically birthing AGI any minute now was 60% of the posts here for a year straight

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#29

Post by kvakerok »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #26
g15jv2dp wrote: post #21

Published the same day as https://theconversation.com/ai-chatbots-are-intruding-into-o... > A parent asked a question in a private Facebook group in April 2024: Does anyone with a child who is both gifted and disabled have any experience with New York City public schools? The parent received a seemingly helpful answer that laid out some characteristics of a specific school, beginning with the context that “I have a c…

I recently created a new account on Facebook with the single goal of seeing what was going on in my local community. Firstly their search /discover was pretty terrible. I am sure that local groups exist, but searching for keywords mostly turned up communities with commercial angles. Secondly even tho I only joined groups related to a very specific European location, every 3rd post in my feed is now bizzarely a scanti…

They must've hard-coded something in recently, because I've got a permanent injection of scantily clad tiktok booty into my feed as well, and my account had no changes for years. I think they're just blanket applying it to all men now.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#30

Post by bregma »

sneak wrote: post #15
drjakerenzella wrote: post #14

I’m one of the authors of this article, great to see it shared to HN. It’s been interesting to see how the article has resonated with people, and that many of us are feeling the same way about the internet we know and love. I think one of the responses to the growing phenomenon, especially as LLMs make fake content even easier and more convincing, is that we will see increased uptake on platforms like Discord where y…

Bots are software tools used by humans to publish, just like web browsers. Nothing on the internet happens without human intent.

This is exactly it. AI bots have no volition. The internet will be endeadened by people training bots on fake data posted by people running bots.

Bots don't kill internets, people do.

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