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The 'Dead-Internet Theory'

theatlantic.com

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Re: The 'Dead-Internet Theory'

#31

Post by jka »

A brief thought experiment, followed by a suggestion about how to combat the worst of this effect, in the unlikely case that it became true:

Even if all of the content you're interacting with is managed and generated, it does still ultimately affect the real world around you in some way. Call it "fake" if you will, but it has a downstream effect. You can ask your friends and neighbours whether they have the same opinions about the world, whether they've read the same articles and reached similar (or opposite) conslusions, and see the results of political and regional decision-making around you.

The strategy is to keep a clear vision of what you think improvement is, and to require proof-of-work from others during interactions that bring you (ideally all, in a multi-person setting) closer to your vision.

If an entity that you're interacting with (whether it's a person, an organization, a bot, or entirely indeterminate) doesn't provide verifiable progress (ideally without loopholes) towards your vision, that's when you need to decide whether to attempt to correct their actions (perhaps aided by the likeminded group around you), or simply to gradually disengage if they don't appear to adapt and realign over time.

You should also be aware that you and your own vision may be realigned by the proof-of-work requested by others; and in those cases you also have a value judgement to make: do I change my opinions based on the requests and evidence I've received, or do I continue to adhere to my chosen path?

Re: The 'Dead-Internet Theory'

#32

Post by Saptarishi »

ergot_vacation wrote: post #17

As expected of the Atlantic, the author misses the point. The assertion of "Dead Internet" is not (necessarily) that 99% of everything on the net is made by one sinister literal AI run by the US government (though things might well converge to this point eventually). The point is that currently, less and less of the content is organic or real anymore. "Bot" in modern Internet parlance is shorthand. It CAN mean a GPT-…

Opinion shepherding has always existed , in the ancient past it used to be merely gossip between people, soon transforming into print media, radio, television. Social media is its latest avatar. I can only shudder imagining what awaits us in the future.

Re: The 'Dead-Internet Theory'

#33

Post by jsterSC »

Finnucane wrote: post #2

The original joke was, on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog. Now it's no one knows you're a bot. (now they not only know you're a dog, but what kind of dog food you eat and how often you go walkies)

Everyone on the internet is a bot. Especially you.

Re: The 'Dead-Internet Theory'

#35

Post by snypher »

analognoise wrote: post #9
ianai wrote: post #3

Or maybe there’s an AI that did come to awareness somewhere and decided to wipe humans out by getting us to violently fight with one another with outrageous stuff on the internet. There’s a Douglas Adams quote that goes something like “for every part of the universe there’s some other part that would look at the original part with outright disgust.”

Then the AI spends Dyson-sphere (or just Bitcoin) levels of energy getting us to fight each other on Twitter, and according to it's metrics it's single handedly destroying the human race with conflict, but it doesn't realize nothing important is on Twitter and neither is anybody with any actual power, and right at its maximum metric levels - surely the humans will rip themselves apart any day now! - it realizes Twitt…

I knew I never should have started making paperclips.

Re: The 'Dead-Internet Theory'

#36

Post by NackerHughes »

at_a_remove wrote: post #13
insickness wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fantastic short story called "Sort by Controversial" about a startup that develops a technology that generates the most controversial statements possible and threatens to destroy humanity: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/

In the early days of IRC, around 1991, there was this bot that was ... possibly the most brilliant Turing test dodge I had ever seen. It would respond with keywords, but only in the most argumentative, liable-to-set people off, divisive manner possible. The arguments, I figured through probing, were pre-programmed, it wasn't coming up with them on the fly. You see, people didn't figure out that it was AI because they…

I'm intrigued. Do you have any more info on this?

Re: The 'Dead-Internet Theory'

#37

Post by betwixthewires »

I read that thread a while ago. While I'm not so convinced by the conspiracy rhetoric itself, I think it is plainly obvious that a good chunk of the social parts of the internet are gamed. You've got tons of bots, influencers buying influence instead of generating it, you've got information blackouts, attempts to manipulate discussion, all sorts of things like that. The old saying "everyone is a bot but you" is funny because it is far fetched, but also funny because there's a nugget of truth there.

I wouldn't say the internet is devoid of real people, but it is definitely less useful for real interaction than it used to be.

Re: The 'Dead-Internet Theory'

#38

Post by [deleted] »

Finnucane wrote: post #2

The original joke was, on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog. Now it's no one knows you're a bot. (now they not only know you're a dog, but what kind of dog food you eat and how often you go walkies)

[deleted]

Re: The 'Dead-Internet Theory'

#39

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

jsterSC wrote: post #33
Finnucane wrote: post #2

The original joke was, on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog. Now it's no one knows you're a bot. (now they not only know you're a dog, but what kind of dog food you eat and how often you go walkies)

Everyone on the internet is a bot. Especially you.

Does not compute!
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