One problem with the theory as it is often discussed is that, as in this article, it tends to get mixed up with political concerns involving "misinformation." Misinformation is a slippery term, sometimes used to mean "things I disagree with." Which is not to say that there aren't bad actors manipulating gullible people in regards to politics, or that AI isn't one of their tools. But it's very easy to hit the panic button on this when there really are people out there who support things you oppose.
I suspect the primary purpose of bots is to make it look like the web is still an active, thriving place, rather than a mostly sterile and dull one.
2 comments:
It seems to me the dead internet theory depends a lot on how you interact with the internet as a whole. It's certainly no longer a wild west full of nerds bonding over old sci-fi shows or people printing out maps. But what is true is that the social media internet has been largely taken over by bots that behave like machines upvoting each other to make money for someone and the far sneakier AI bots actually posting as someone. The independent part of social media may only have existed for a brief period if at all.
In point of fact it's not the spread of misinformation that's concerning; it's the reliance on unverified information that's problematic. People weren’t better critical thinkers before social media, it just wasn’t as cost effective to distribute it and there was a practical limit to how far someone could circulate a pamphlet. Nowadays anyone can reach an audience of millions without leaving their couch.
At least there's still a lot of interesting and valuable information to be found on the web. Eventually the bots will be left to talk to each other and the rest of us can get back to the lamp posts and the corner pubs.
It was always predictable that the bulk of the internet would be harnessed by people with a lot of money looking to make still more money. At the very least this was always one of the stronger possibilities. What would have been very hard to predict was how bizarrely unproductive this economic activity would be, mostly unmoored from any recognizable goods or services. As to AI bots masquerading as people, this wouldn't even be possible if humans hadn't been trained to act in such a mechanical way.
Jaron Lanier has said that "Information is alienated experience." Alienated as in at a remove from actual experience. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, except that the alienated variety is often all there is. For most of history having access to people with actual experience was considered the gold standard. Now that seems so impossible that many have dropped it even as an ideal.
There's interesting and valuable information as a residue of interesting thinkers and learners who have been there. The best thing anyone can do for themselves is to make sure they know where the nearest lamp posts and corner pubs are.
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