The internet used to be a curious place where content was posted, unfiltered, and it was up to the user to provide discretion.

That has pretty much disappeared now. Liveleak has shut down, Ogrish, rotten, etc.

Yeah, you probably shouldnt watch this stuff, but it was left up to the user to decide. Daniel Pearl, funkytown, Christchurch.

Quote:

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The Dead Internet Theory is a conspiracy theory suggesting that a large portion of the internet is now mostly fake, with content generated by bots, AI, or other automated systems. According to this theory, the internet stopped being genuinely user-driven around the mid-2010s, and much of the "activity" onlinewhether social media posts, forum discussions, or even newsis now artificially generated.

The theory argues that powerful entities (like governments or major corporations) could be influencing the internet's content, using AI-driven bots to promote certain ideas, suppress dissent, and control the flow of information. Proponents believe that the internet's content has become more sterile, repetitive, and lacks authentic human interaction, which some say has contributed to a sense of monotony and distrust online.

Critics of the theory point out that the rise in automated content is largely due to advancements in AI and automation, which have been integrated across industries to streamline communication and marketing, not necessarily to deceive. Nonetheless, the Dead Internet Theory reflects the skepticism some people feel about the authenticity of online spaces today.

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So now it becomes, are most people that you are interacting with bots? It's non-zero percentage. How high it is is up for debate. Two Teas Economics comes to mind.

Governments are using this to manufacture support for their obvious ******ed ideas, and squelching the rest that they dont agree with.

I could see how F16 was generated by AI. Really makes ya think.

There are a few users here that are human, but they dang sure get their talking points from bots and are incapable of critical thinking

rocky the dog said:

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Rocky, you are the only person I trust now on the internet.

You make an excellent point {username_6013}.

I too find that {compelling_disc335}.

Didn't we have this thread a year or so ago?

Tailgate88 said:

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Didn't we have this thread a year or so ago?

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https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3484033/1

Yeah, it's here. And you are pretty much right on for the timing. Almost a year ago to the day. And the OP posted it more eloquently than I ever could have, I've just been wondering about this for awhile now.

The point is, the internet used to be something different. the newcomers to it cannot discern the difference between what it used to be and what it is now. Only those of us who knew what it was and what it has now become can tell the two apart.

Eso si, Que es said:

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There are a few users here that are human, but they dang sure get their talking points from bots and are incapable of critical thinking

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ChatGPT & Grok etc have made the problem much worse!

I have it on good authority that Redstone and BenFiasco14 are bots.

Its really bad now if you hop on x. Most of it is AI bot accounts

We are moving into a post proof or post validation world.

How much confidence can be placed into any evidence you didn't collect yourself? We already know people lie, the hockey stick graph, and phantom weather station stuff for example. But you could still put some confidence into pictures and videos. Not anymore.

And even if YOU don't get fooled it won't matter if the majority does get fooled.

Reality will be what a few powerful people decide it to be very soon.

A decent portion of my content is stored here, which is why I've developed a compliant attitude towards Staff / Moderator. In the past year or so, it's been concentrated on my UAP thread on Entrainment, although at some point I'll return to my thread here, given the massive amount of content I've got stored in my files / invite-only Discord channel, where I've written some about Dead Internet Theory.

Redstone said:

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A decent portion of my content is stored here, which is why I've developed a compliant attitude towards Staff / Moderator. In the past year or so, it's been concentrated on my UAP thread on Entrainment, although at some point I'll return to my thread here, given the massive amount of content I've got stored in my files / invite-only Discord channel, where I've written some about Dead Internet Theory.

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Very astute post. /Rolando

Sadly, Rolando retired from TexAgs, although he still texts me memes, some of which I add to Discord.

96AgGrad said:

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You make an excellent point {username_6013}.

I too find that {compelling_disc335}.

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Ok, this is a seriously, Seriously, underrated post. A tip of the hat to you 96AgGrad!

I am not 100% in agreement that it's majority bots, but the internet has certainly been sanitized and cultivated. Now you get what Google wants you to get. People will say "wut about duck duck go and others?" Well, they use pretty much the same system. The Internet has basically become a huge shopping mall.

Queso1 said:

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I am not 100% in agreement that it's majority bots, but the internet has certainly been sanitized and cultivated. Now you get what Google wants you to get. People will say "wut about duck duck go and others?" Well, they use pretty much the same system. The Internet has basically become a huge shopping mall.

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I miss the old Instagram that was simply photography. Now it is essentially 75% ads and 25% dumbass reels produced by the dim.

The rise in AI created content may end up causing real problems for the continued development of Large Language Model based AI. The consumption of AI generated learning data could have similar effects on LLM's as feeding cow brains and such had on cows. An AI version of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease would be a bad thing.

Note: I'm not an expert in either AI or Mad Cow/ Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, thus my "may" and "could." I have however heard/read this discussed by those working on LLMs. If hallucinations are bad now, what will it be like when those hallucinations are being consumed as learning data?

BMX Bandit said:

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Redstone said:

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A decent portion of my content is stored here, which is why I've developed a compliant attitude towards Staff / Moderator. In the past year or so, it's been concentrated on my UAP thread on Entrainment, although at some point I'll return to my thread here, given the massive amount of content I've got stored in my files / invite-only Discord channel, where I've written some about Dead Internet Theory.

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Very astute post. /Rolando

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BadMoonRisin said:

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The internet used to be a curious place where content was posted, unfiltered, and it was up to the user to provide discretion.

That has pretty much disappeared now. Liveleak has shut down, Ogrish, rotten, etc.

Yeah, you probably shouldnt watch this stuff, but it was left up to the user to decide. Daniel Pearl, funkytown, Christchurch.

Quote:

---

The Dead Internet Theory is a conspiracy theory suggesting that a large portion of the internet is now mostly fake, with content generated by bots, AI, or other automated systems. According to this theory, the internet stopped being genuinely user-driven around the mid-2010s, and much of the "activity" onlinewhether social media posts, forum discussions, or even newsis now artificially generated.

The theory argues that powerful entities (like governments or major corporations) could be influencing the internet's content, using AI-driven bots to promote certain ideas, suppress dissent, and control the flow of information. Proponents believe that the internet's content has become more sterile, repetitive, and lacks authentic human interaction, which some say has contributed to a sense of monotony and distrust online.

Critics of the theory point out that the rise in automated content is largely due to advancements in AI and automation, which have been integrated across industries to streamline communication and marketing, not necessarily to deceive. Nonetheless, the Dead Internet Theory reflects the skepticism some people feel about the authenticity of online spaces today.

---

So now it becomes, are most people that you are interacting with bots? It's non-zero percentage. How high it is is up for debate. Two Teas Economics comes to mind.

Governments are using this to manufacture support for their obvious ******ed ideas, and squelching the rest that they dont agree with.

---

When Europe and china get to effectively censor the entire world via strict laws, it kills the internet everywhere.

For example, go to chatgpt and tell it to give the details of the recent migrant assault of a young girl in Scotland.

It will censor its own results on behalf of European law.

It will draw a picture of Jesus, but not Mohammed.

It will make cartoon images of g w bush, but won't make one of xi as a Winnie the pooh sort of bear?

The entire internet is censored by big govt regardless of where you live. That's half the problem. The other half are just the bots.

i Am A Robot/

Great post!

None of us seem to be real. We're only supporting characters in the lives that we live. Any real truth, any precious fact will always be lost to a mountain of shattered make believe

I remember!!!!!

I still use Usenet and MIRC.

Although been a while (more than a year) for Usenet - the old stuff is drying up off the servers.

Psycho Bunny said:

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None of us seem to be real. We're only supporting characters in the lives that we live. Any real truth, any precious fact will always be lost to a mountain of shattered make believe

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I think we are trending that way but we aren't as far along as the conspiracy theory suggests. There is a lot of economic and political power that can be exploited by curating the internet experience of the public and constraining its previous wide open nature to certain narratives and purposes, and the technology to engage in that manipulation at a high level and via automated processes is increasingly available, and difficult to distinguish. We already are somewhat adrift in a ln information environment full of junk or bad information or manipulation. Our tools increasingly steer us or manipulate us for profit or power. That's a very real long term problem. We will have difficulty distinguishing between true and false information because each of us will be subtly fed confirmation biases tuned to manipulate us at an individual level and unless we deliberately check that each of us sees the same information from the same sources consistently, we might not notice.