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The 'Dead Internet Theory'

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Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#31

Post by jddj »

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.

The conversation is fundamentally about humans and technology.

The equation is roughly result = some human's intent * available technology

If some human (or organisation)'s intent is to deceive the elderly at scale and their reach is that much greater now due to new technology, what part of the conversation stops due to there being a human in the loop?

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#32

Post by e_y_ »

Social media was already becoming soulless even before AI generated content. Most common: reposting other people's content. Sometimes with attribution, sometimes without, either way the original creator doesn't get any of the likes or revenue share.

Then we get into staged content. Usually it's harmless; acting out a made-up scenario for a comedy bit. But sometimes it gets more insidious, particularly the ones where people pretend to do good deeds but are just inventing a sob story about strangers who didn't ask for help and didn't actually need it.

And people eat this up. You'll find some skeptical comments but it's absolutely drowned out by the volume of people who think it's real and share. And it's unlikely that all tens of thousands of those people are bots. I'm lead to believe that this kind of low-quality, questionably-real, feel-good content is just legitimately popular. Not hugely popular but enough to make me groan that people are engaging with it at all.

To tie things back to AI, the latest groan-worthy trend is people sharing pictures of things made out of bread or fruit that are obviously made by AI but the comments are "incredible" "wow how did you make this?" which makes me fear for when somebody uses AI image generation for misinformation instead of just stupid stuff.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#33

Post by Barrin92 »

This is a true phenomenon but hasn't much to do with AI specifically. It's an observation that some people made much earlier, like Baudrillard, who went deeper by pointing out that this isn't just the result of automation, but the logical consequence of mass communication in itself. It's worth quoting the part from SSM in full and noticing how much this sounds like the AI debate. It's even hilarious how technically accurate that description is by chance.

"The real is produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, and memory banks, models of control - and it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times from these. It no longer needs to be rational, because it no longer measures itself against either an ideal or negative instance. It is no longer anything but operational. In fact, it is no longer really the real, because no imaginary envelops it anymore. It is a hyperreal, produced from a radiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace without atmosphere. By crossing into a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor that of truth, the era of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials - worse: with their artificial resurrection in the systems of signs, a material more malleable than meaning, in that it lends itself to all systems of equivalences, to all binary oppositions, to all combinatory algebra. It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and short- circuits all its vicissitudes. Never again will the real have the chance to produce itself - such is the vital function of the model in a system of death, or rather of anticipated resurrection, that no longer even gives the event of death a chance. A hyperreal henceforth sheltered from the imaginary, and from any distinction between the real and the imaginary, leaving room only for the orbital recurrence of models and for the simulated generation of differences."

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#36

Post by Nursie »

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…

My feed is now swamped with trash.

My friends, now we're all a bit older, don't post as frequently as they once did. I'm also a member of a couple of hyper-local groups which don't necessarily get posts every day, and I have no interest in anything else. I'm fine with this, if nobody's posted for a while then I'll see that and move on.

Facebook is not fine with this. Apparently I must be interested in archaeology, or sexist jokes, or various displays of flesh, or cars, or sports, or following someone that's making misogynist 'jokes' or ancient aliens conspiracies or a not-very-funny comic or more flesh or... I just must be interested in something, surely? It's just a matter of time before they wave the right thing under my nose and I bite and increase my engagement?

Is that the thinking? Because now 90%+ of my feed is unwanted shite and it's hard to find the few things I do go there for. And this is driving people like me and my friends away further, leading to a downward spiral of less content for those that remain, more 'suggestions' etc.

It's also baffling - multiple bullshit 'archaeology' groups will post the same picture (often of something not related to archaeology at all) on the same day, so they're clearly run by the same entity, spinning up millions of crappy 'groups' with low-quality content. Why do they exist? Who is benefitting from this?

AI can only speed up this enshittification, but the platform is already drowning in it.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#37

Post by wasteduniverse »

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…

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Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#38

Post by darby_nine »

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…

Ah one of my favorite theories! Here's a wikipedia link with even more fiction and formal philosophy covering the concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_individualism

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#39

Post by HlessClaudesman »

Nursie wrote: post #36
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…

My feed is now swamped with trash. My friends, now we're all a bit older, don't post as frequently as they once did. I'm also a member of a couple of hyper-local groups which don't necessarily get posts every day, and I have no interest in anything else. I'm fine with this, if nobody's posted for a while then I'll see that and move on. Facebook is not fine with this. Apparently I must be interested in archaeology, or…

Exactly. There is so much trash in my feed it has become a tedious chore to scroll through for any real content. Very little signal, not worth the noise.

Not to mention embarrassing that a viewer of my feed would think that I am some sort of knuckle-dragging horndog.

Perhaps the internet is bifurcating into lowbrow and highbrow, and facebook has chosen a side.

Re: The 'Dead Internet Theory'

#40

Post by esd_g0d »

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…

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