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The 'Dead Internet Theory'

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Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#41

Post by lucianbr »

houseplant wrote: post #7

I watched a great video essay about this. Bots to create fake articles, bots to defect fake articles, bots to use common word salad to evade detection, bots detecting the word salad, bots to make comments on articles, bots to upvote those comments, bots to aggregate these articles and generate articles out of the comments, bots to rip off and change a bit of the wording of an article so they could repost the article,…

I can't see any other ending for this than people simply giving up on using social networks, at least those that exist now and exhibit this phenomenon.

I feel that in search of a few more dollars from engagement, they are slowly killing their main product. People will eventually learn that this is not a useful thing, and avoid it, although it happens slow. But once this enters the mainstream consciousness, it's over.

Maybe other social networks will appear, that will somehow guarantee you are interacting with humans, or maybe something else will take their place. But anyone who thinks they can extract value from humans longterm by drowning them in machine generated nonsense is wrong. People will adapt.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#42

Post by nailz1911 »

StefanBatory wrote: post #25
immibis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sc…

beep boop!

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#43

Post by brabel »

kvakerok wrote: post #29
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The algorithm probably and correctly noticed that all men in general have trouble not clicking on scantly clad booty posts.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#44

Post by FrustratedMonky »

xjay wrote: post #13

Somewhat related: "The Egg" [2009*] is a fictional short story by American writer Andy Weir. [1] > You, a 48-year-old man who dies in a car crash, meet God, the narrator, who says that you have been reincarnated many times before, and that you are next to be reincarnated as a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD. God then explains that you are, in fact, constantly reincarnated across time, and that all human beings who hav…

Read it long time ago, but never new it was written by Andy Weir, same guy that wrote The Martian. Makes me want to look up his other stuff to see what range he has. I thought it was all purely space program stuff.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#45

Post by brabel »

xjay wrote: post #13

Somewhat related: "The Egg" [2009*] is a fictional short story by American writer Andy Weir. [1] > You, a 48-year-old man who dies in a car crash, meet God, the narrator, who says that you have been reincarnated many times before, and that you are next to be reincarnated as a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD. God then explains that you are, in fact, constantly reincarnated across time, and that all human beings who hav…

Even more "somewhat" related:

There is a physical theory that claims that all electrons are the same electron, just travelling endless through time from the beginning to the end of the universe and back (becoming positrons on the reversed timeline).

That explains why all electrons have the same exact charge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

Not sure it's a serious theory capable of proving something, but there you go.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#46

Post by FrustratedMonky »

Interesting Idea. Not the Dead Internet, but that the AI's are riffing on each other and making their own content for each other now.

That so much of internet is bots, specifically different bots, from multiple players, and some on auto-pilot aka AI.

So now, these AI bots will pick up on themes from other bots and the whole group of bots will go down some rabbit whole. One AI picks up on some idea, makes a meme, the others kind of follow riff on it, then that is the seed for the next AI to take off. Like their own society, like a bunch of teenagers.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#47

Post by oriolid »

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.

> Nothing on the internet happens without human intent.

I have written many pieces of software that did something I didn't intend. I have the feeling it's the same for everyone who's written anything more complex than hello world.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#48

Post by dspillett »

kvakerok wrote: post #29
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not much by way of scantily clad anythings on my feed, but I've experienced a sudden glut of anger-bait posts, both there and in other places. Not sure if it is due to election season, or if the Algorithms On High have noticed me trying not to interact with the eternal14s any more and are trying to drag me back off that wagon. Though the theory I currently think most likely is that a number of worthwhile posters have dropped off so the arseholes-to-decent-people ratio has had yet another boost and me being shown more crap is a consequence of that.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#49

Post by brabel »

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…

> Or maybe those like Musk will get his way and platforms like X will require paid verification!

I would like for verification to be mandatory on platforms meant for "real people" to interact, but not "paid" on a proprietary platform, but using new standards for internationally valid identities. I am betting on w3C's Verifiable Credentials for that: https://w3c.github.io/vc-overview/

It's still a bit unclear who would have the authority to issue "real person" credentials, but at least in the EU that's currently being worked on: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-...

In the USA, they seem to be trying to use Driver's Licenses for this sort of thing, see the ISO/IEC specs at https://www.iso.org/standard/63798.html

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#50

Post by lelandfe »

throwaway2562 wrote: post #9

By analogy, there’s some loose link to be made between this and the Dark Forest Hypothesis. Given that the internet is filled with explicitly predatory algorithms and deceptive ‘dark patterns’ both trying to attract attention, thereby extract personal data or cash from humans, letting them know you are a human is merely to invite attack. There may be advanced civilisations hidden online, but we are not them. Discuss…

Hmmm, I'm not so sure. If bots are perfectly mimicking humans then instead of a dark forest, it's more like a forest with a noisemaker fitted to each tree.
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