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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

#51

Post by amiantos »

Why is it being called dead internet theory when, as far as I can tell, what's really happening is that big centralized systems are being overrun with bots? The internet existed and was pretty great before these large centralized systems came into being.

Anyone can still run a blog/website, and/or their own discourse server. There's no need to mourn for these centralized systems that largely existed only to exploit us in some way. Let's celebrate "small internet theory", an internet where exploitation is effectively impossible because every company that tries it is overrun with AI bots. That sounds awesome to me personally, but I was also up late last night watching clips of Conan O'Brien from 1999 and the nostalgia for that era / what the internet was like back then hit me so hard it was almost painful.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#52

Post by roxolotl »

QQ00 wrote: post #14
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.

Someone, somewhere, salivating at the idea of combining both ideas. A paid for digital ID service that you can use as authentication for the web. Actually, if I'm thinking about it. Social Media platforms already started this with the paid blue badge for verification, and it's also monthly subscription. But it's for their respective platform only, not universal.

Isn’t this what World Coin is? Definitively not a fan of the project but I think the general goal is to get people to verify they are human and then somehow “waves hands blockchain” that can be carried with them on the internet.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#53

Post by Invictus0 »

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…

There are probably more than 10^17 AI model executions occurring per day. I know in ye olde HN there are many Purists that are Too Good For AI, but the majority of the human race is consuming AI at a blinding rate, and if they really didn't like it, they would stop.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#54

Post by _pdp_ »

The Internet was always full of bots. Not chatbots, but bots like crawlers, scrapers, automated scripts. That was fine.

What the OP is talking about is bots that participate in public discourse. That's the actual problem.

I think it can be handled to a degree though. Private communities, private Internet on top of existing Internet, and social media platforms without public APIs and with strict, enforceable ToS would all help.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#55

Post by wizzwizz4 »

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 don't hide my identity, but I've yet to find a "non-anonymous" platform that actually accepts my identity.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#56

Post by hinkley »

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.

Verified entities defecting by using AI to generate their content for them will break this.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#58

Post by JumpCrisscross »

amiantos wrote: post #51

Why is it being called dead internet theory when, as far as I can tell, what's really happening is that big centralized systems are being overrun with bots? The internet existed and was pretty great before these large centralized systems came into being. Anyone can still run a blog/website, and/or their own discourse server. There's no need to mourn for these centralized systems that largely existed only to exploit u…

> Why is it being called dead internet theory

“A social networking system simulates a user using a language model trained using training data generated from user interactions performed by that user. The language model may be used for simulating the user when the user is absent from the social networking system, for example, when the user takes a long break or if the user is deceased” [1].

(More seriously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory)

[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US12513102B2

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#59

Post by hinkley »

bonesss wrote: post #18
yakattak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A $10 one time not-an-asshole fee is totally reasonable. History also shows you can take a $10 fee and maintain quality on SomethingAwful for quite some time.

I wonder how much that functions as an age gate since kids usually don't have credit cards?

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#60

Post by pixl97 »

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.

>being terminally online to think that most other people are also terminally online.

50% of US teenagers describe themselves as terminally online.

Go any place where people work and have time to goof, and you'll see them online.

Go to a bar/club, you see people with a phone in front of their face.

The idea there is an online and offline is crumbling further every day. Cameras are small, bandwidth is high in relation to our compression algorithms. Anything happening in the world can be broadcast live. More and more types of machines are coming online that accept digital instructions that make things happen in real life.

Furthermore it's an odd rejection of the printing press on your part. That methods of information exchange affect the real world around them. If the book brought about the industrial revolution, what does an always available global communications network bring?

At least based on your writing here on HN it seems like you're probably an introvert, or at least a person that likes quiet pondering and reflections. Reading a book would be far more interesting than most online activities, right? If I'm right and that is the case, then you may be missing just how many people are horrifically addicted to being on social media all the time.

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