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The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

adriankrebs.ch

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Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#41

Post by bakugo »

yakattak wrote: post #10
bsaul wrote: post #5

I only see two outcomes for this problem : an internet of verified identities (start by uploading your ID card). Or a paid internet, where it doesn't matter who you are, but since you're going to pay for that email or that reddit account, the probability that it's AI spam is greatly reduced. And i'm looking forward to none of them.

Honestly the $10 barrier to SomethingAwful back in the day (and I guess now since it’s still around) definitely made a huge difference. I hate the idea of subscribing to a site like HN or Reddit… but one time $10 to post? I’d accept that if it meant less bots.

Odds are it would harm real discussions more than it would harm bot spam.

The bots exist for a reason, usually to covertly advertise a product, and by themselves already cost money to run. Someone looking to astroturf their AI B2B SaaS would probably be more willing to pay $10 to post than a random user from a less wealthy country who just wants to leave a comment on an interesting discussion.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#42

Post by gr8tyeah »

bsaul wrote: post #5

I only see two outcomes for this problem : an internet of verified identities (start by uploading your ID card). Or a paid internet, where it doesn't matter who you are, but since you're going to pay for that email or that reddit account, the probability that it's AI spam is greatly reduced. And i'm looking forward to none of them.

I pay for my ISP and the financial institution the money comes from has age verification

Social media, HN and the rest of internet first business can go broke

I don't see anyone out there propping me up directly. Why would I give crap if some open source hacker or etsy dealer doesn't have a home next month? Yeah I don't because they're not caring in the same way

Thoughts and prayers everyone else but your effort is clear, not going to be 1984'd into caring for people who clearly don't care back.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#43

Post by ticulatedspline »

tines wrote: post #12
sebastiennight wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this will be a tiny minority who is already currently not terminally online (so, no big change for them). And the vast majority will just be driven to more AI-mediated interactions.

I think it's a symptom of being terminally online to think that most other people are also terminally online. The internet has a way of convincing you that most of the [interesting] events in the world happen on the internet. But I think this isn't the case; most stuff happens in the real world, most people live in the real world most of the time, and a tiny fraction of trite drama happens online.

Dunnow, everyone is in a bubble of some sorts. I'm online a good bit but rarely on my phone, If I'm away from my desk I'm offline. My social circle is similar so I would naturally have bias for what I experience.

Year or so ago I took an Uber and was mesmerized by the driver. He had his phone up mounted on the left and was pretty constantly interacting with it. Checking for new rides, watching a video, checking facebook. It was quite impressive how much content he consumed while at a red light and how dexterously he navigated to and through like 10 different apps.

I very much got the feeling that this was a person that was terminally online and suspected that he's not alone. A bit alienating really, living in the same country speaking the same language but realizing there's this huge cultural/behavior divide between us.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#44

Post by retrocog »

kubb wrote: post #37
bsaul wrote: post #5

I only see two outcomes for this problem : an internet of verified identities (start by uploading your ID card). Or a paid internet, where it doesn't matter who you are, but since you're going to pay for that email or that reddit account, the probability that it's AI spam is greatly reduced. And i'm looking forward to none of them.

I want cool cryptography where I can, e.g. verify where I'm writing from and what my age is without giving away any other information. Or if I want, I can verify that I'm myself, and eschew anonymity, and certain platforms should only accept contributions from people who don't hide their identity. Everyone knows who you are in the town square.

IMHO, this is the exact instinct and there's a way to verify identity, location, and age without even having to share those directly.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#46

Post by nathancahill »

kubb wrote: post #37
bsaul wrote: post #5

I only see two outcomes for this problem : an internet of verified identities (start by uploading your ID card). Or a paid internet, where it doesn't matter who you are, but since you're going to pay for that email or that reddit account, the probability that it's AI spam is greatly reduced. And i'm looking forward to none of them.

I want cool cryptography where I can, e.g. verify where I'm writing from and what my age is without giving away any other information. Or if I want, I can verify that I'm myself, and eschew anonymity, and certain platforms should only accept contributions from people who don't hide their identity. Everyone knows who you are in the town square.

I think this was the premise of Keybase?

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#47

Post by floatrock »

august- wrote: post #22

do you think small, invite-only communities will end up being the last holdout for genuine human conversation online? or will bots eventually infiltrate those too?

Bots will absolutely infiltrate them eventually, but I think it's the only solution.

Internet promised ability to connect with anyone anywhere around the world. It felt limitless and infinite.

Turns out in an infinite world, the loudest voices are the ragebaits, the algorithmically-amplified, or the outright scammers.

Human social brain doesn't work in an infinite world, it works for a Dunbar's Number world. And we all like our psuedo-anonymous soapboxes (I'm standing on one right now), but trick will be to realize that the glitter of infinite quantity isn't the same as small-scale connection.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#48

Post by righthand »

d--b wrote: post #28

Well, it's not such terrible news, is it? I get nostalgia for the 90s/00s, but that time was never coming back anyways. The best we can hope now is for people to be less online. And if it comes from people drowning in AI crap, I think it's kind of funny.

I don’t think people are going to get offline and the best we can probably do is create free and open p2p platforms that don’t require registration necessarily to use. And allow people to control their own databases. A lot of communication is locked behind corporations that run the services that are building these tracking and identification databases.

I actually think it’s more about getting people off browsers and other tracking software.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#49

Post by officeplant »

crab_galaxy wrote: post #23
Invictus0 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could have easily said this twenty years ago when photoshopped photos were going viral on the early internet. Turns out people are completely fine with ai content and photoshop.

Fine in what way? What people? I have not seen or heard of a single person who is excited about AI generated blog posts, or TikToks, or commercials, or images. In fact it’s the opposite, the internet coined the term AI slop, and my non-internet addicted friends hate the fact that chatGPT is killing the environment. The only people I’ve ever seen champion AI are the few who are excited by the bleeding edge, and the ma…

The most common people just seem to be the elderly who don't care / don't know any better. The same ones who told us never to believe anything from the internet. They seem to be hooked on weird AI jesus facebook posts, daily AI generated motivational content, talking to the chatbot in Whatsapp, etc.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#50

Post by youainti »

nathancahill wrote: post #46
kubb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want cool cryptography where I can, e.g. verify where I'm writing from and what my age is without giving away any other information. Or if I want, I can verify that I'm myself, and eschew anonymity, and certain platforms should only accept contributions from people who don't hide their identity. Everyone knows who you are in the town square.

I think this was the premise of Keybase?

Still jaded that went nowhere...
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