The Old Internet, and the Bot Epidemic

[lestagio]

In case you haven't heard already, the Dead Internet Theory is a concept that the people you interact with on the internet are bots rather than real people. That's it. But it's not really a theory these days, as Cloudflare released a few days ago that over 50% of internet traffic is now bots. Damn.
I've been hanging out on the internet for a long while now, and my profession has always been tech related, so I've watched the internet really develop and change. It was such a cool idea, that I could just communicate with nerds around the world over the most random things. The IRC days were awesome.

But now, bots are everywhere. I've deleted Twitter and I'm considering deleting Reddit. It was fun while it lasted, but my god, it's all bots these days. I was actually considering bringing this topic up over there instead, but I'm more likely to get bot replies. This forum is one of those rare corners of the internet where I can actually expect to get mostly human answers, which is the thing I miss about forums as a whole. It's pretty damn hard to distinguish a bot from a real person at this point. Look at Moltbook if you really wanna freak yourself out. I had been watching my mother fall for all sorts of AI images and things, but some of it's starting to even trip me up now.

So anyway, I wanted to discuss with people who are hopefully real and not bots... Is all the AI affecting you in anyway? Do you have any other social media accounts at all? Any predictions for the future? Do you use LLMs or any sorts of AI for anything? I wanna hear your thoughts! I've been watching more and more stuff that is computer/programming related get screwed up due to people using AI. Workplaces trying to shove it everywhere, "vibe coding" if you really want to go down that rabbit hole, and just kinda trashy stuff being created. I don't deny that I use AI occasionall in my day as a tool, but I think using it for your every thought and feeling is a fast track to failure.

People here seem to be a bit more hopeful compared to all of the doom coming from other places. I'm not trying to make this a depressing thread, and I don't wanna go anywhere near politics and all of that. But I wanted to have an actual discussion about this because it's sort of crazy to me how quickly the internet just... changed. The old internet was much nicer. Less sanitized, but more human, and I think it sucks that younger people aren't going to experience the brief pocket of time where you could actually talk to PEOPLE and have more fun on the internet. That's not to say the internet doesn't have good places on it still, but a lot of it has really started to get a lot worse, at least I think.

(Side note, I just noticed there's a semi-recent thread about a similar topic, but this just took me a good while to write and it's a different enough topic that I'm sending it out anyway, LOL)

 

[KamakoKamako's icon]

I am pro-AI in many respects (I am more for AI than against), but I would be incredibly annoyed to ever find that a person I'd taken the time to build a rapport with online turned out to be an AI. It would feel like such a waste of my time.

Tailoring an LLM to meet your needs when using it as a tool though makes sense for the benefits it can bring.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

I actually just made an Instagram to showcase some of my lame-ass stuff (link on my profile ;)) and it's bots, bots, bots... as is Reddit, X, YouTube, and any place that allows you to input text on a box.

That's really annoying, but what worries me is that a lot of people are trying to compete with them bots and seem to have an ongoing bid to see who can post the dumbest, most artificial and anti-human thing possible! — I swear, 99% of what I come across are milquetoast bullshit, "perfect shots" or thirst traps (usually by minors who, in a sane world, would be grounded for life).

It's so shallow that it makes me deeply thankful for RGT — at least here I can butt heads with real people who are more or less capable of higher thinking, damn it xD

 

[lestagio]

That's really annoying, but what worries me is that a lot of people are trying to compete with them bots and seem to have an ongoing bid to see who can post the dumbest, most artificial and anti-human thing possible!

This is the thing that's been pissing me off. This is gonna sound gatekeepy, but let me live: I think the expansion of the internet, while being positive in a few ways, has made the overall experience SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE. Now there's people letting the internet parent their children, people building their opinions off of nothing, and hardly thinking for themselves. And now, there's very few websites that people actually visit. What was once a bustling, unique city is now practically City 17. I hate seeing unique discussion get sabotaged for some total bullshit! I've seen a LOT of people form opinions based off of something that a bot just pissed out onto the internet.

The other day, I went to r/popular on Reddit. Big mistake. It's practically ALL BOTS now, just arguing with one another. Half the time it's hard to post anything because yup, all you get are bots. I'm on the internet, I expect to get called the occasional slur. But I'd like a real person to do it, dammit!

 

[Appiplyer]

'>' well one thing i enjoy while diving into the internet or you might call it "Surfing), was the wonder of finding something by myself wheter it's somone random blogs, a tutorial website, or heck a fucking Landmine webs.

The thing is now i lost that kind of wonder since if i opened youtube well the system was the one to decide which video should i watch, heck my fucking youtube homepage was filled with barely any youtuber that i've subscribed. I was a man of many interest okay, i might get interested in one thing for a week or maybe month, then jump to another thing. So that's why i love to just search in the forum for some thread that might be interesting.

 

[bombatomba77]

...I'm considering deleting Reddit.

See, that just proves you aren't a bot, lol.
I personally use AI for certain tasks (helping with scripting, for example) and today it let me to a new mode of thought so I was able to finally fix an annoying Kerberos issue. That was nice. But a lot of time dealing with AI is a lot like dealing with my users: just a little frustrating. Like users, I am feeding it info, making sure to use language that is descriptive without the typical flourish we use in English, calmly trying to get a specific answer out of them that makes sense to me. Say the right thing the wrong way, and it's back to the drawing board or worse, spinning off into a tangent.

I've kind of started viewing AI not as an original thing, but rather as a comglomeration. In the Commonwealth Saga by Peter F Hamilton there is an AI, but instead of being entirely artificial, is instead a gargantuan mash-up of millions of different memories, donated by humans. I guess because of that, along with that now great quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson, "There is no AI, it's just people."

 

[Dyne]

I think AI will eventually change things as much as the internet itself did, in both expected and unexpected ways.

I stay away from social media (this forum is the closest I come to it) so it hasnt affected me there. I do use ChatGPT every now and then to ask questions because its easier than Googling (which isnt that great anymore) but I ask it to provide sources I can check when I think it could be wrong about something

I have to admit part of me worries about AGI going full skynet on us.
But hopefully it wont go there

With AI chat bots, deep fakes, etc... maybe people will just decide the internet is too fake and stop spending so much time on it. Go back to doing things irl.
... yeah right.

 

[lestagio]

'>' well one thing i enjoy while diving into the internet or you might call it "Surfing), was the wonder of finding something by myself wheter it's somone random blogs, a tutorial website, or heck a fucking Landmine webs.

Yeah, I remember hanging out on Geocities and just going through and seeing what cool (and sometimes traumatizing) stuff I could find. I even still have my old book around: "300 Incredible Things to do on the Internet". We've filtered into practically: Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, Tiktok, Facebook, and Instagram. Also the occasional random website when you need a random answer... But now Google's AI at the time of the page just summarizes it all for you!

heck my fucking youtube homepage was filled with barely any youtuber that i've subscribed.

Also, little tip: Youtube has a subscriptions feed you can find on the side, or at https://youtube.com/feed/subscriptions. So that's pretty nice if you actually want to see people you've subscribed to.

 

[Clippy]

I would be incredibly annoyed to ever find that a person I'd taken the time to build a rapport with online turned out to be an AI.

Everyone reading this:

 

[plaindillo]

As a younger person whos used the internet for basically his whole life, and still uses it a lot to this day, in many ways I wish it was less integrated into society. Or at least, not to this extreme that we see ourselves in today, because really, its getting to a point where I'm afraid for how this is affecting the rest of the population, and I've tried to uses social media less unless I'm DMing people (Twitter I basically never use). As for the rise of AI, its unfortunately not gonna go away mostly I feel, but I'm also waiting for people to realize that AI isn't going to make literally everything easier, and learn to rely on it less, because theres a huge push for it to be in everything right now, where people will probably reach some kind of roadblock that makes them rethink the whole thing a little bit.

 

[lestagio]

As a younger person whos used the internet for basically his whole life, and still uses it a lot to this day, in many ways I wish it was less integrated into society. Or at least, not to this extreme that we see ourselves in today, because really, its getting to a point where I'm afraid for how this is affecting the rest of the population, and I've tried to uses social media less unless I'm DMing people (Twitter I basically never use). As for the rise of AI, its unfortunately not gonna go away mostly I feel, but I'm also waiting for people to realize that AI isn't going to make literally everything easier, and learn to rely on it less, because theres a huge push for it to be in everything right now, where people will probably reach some kind of roadblock that makes them rethink the whole thing a little bit.

My nieces and nephews have told me about how their school is tied so much to the internet these days, that if the internet ever goes down, they practically can't even have school. That's just a wild concept to me.

So many things rely on the internet now that honestly, really shouldn't. I'm not trying to yell at the clouds here, but most electronics are tied so close to the internet that it's impossible to use anything without it anymore. I try to self-host and make my own little home network but it's definitely time consuming.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Too bad we no longer get to shoot bots in the head like in the good, old days.

 

[Dick Whip]

I remember back in the 2010s, we used to call them "spambots". The worst thing a bot can do on the internet is copy someone's post and add shady links to their posts and signatures on niche forums like JunkerHQ's old forum (An example of a spambot on JunkerHQ) (and no, none of the mods on that forum, if any, did anything to stop the spambots up until its demise).

 

[ProfessorFrog]

On reddit i'm constantly getting terrible replies, and they're so dumb and demotivate nuanced discussion.

it's affecting my feeling of being able to discuss problems i experience on the internet. It's blocking me from finding acknowledgement that what i'm experiencing is real.

 

[lestagio]

On reddit i'm constantly getting terrible replies, and they're so dumb and demotivate nuanced discussion.

it's affecting my feeling of being able to discuss problems i experience on the internet. It's blocking me from finding acknowledgement that what i'm experiencing is real.

Out of curiosity, I went over to r/popular again and went through the top 20 posts. 7 of the 20 were very likely bots!

Reddit itself has killed themselves anyway. r/popular is different for everyone I think, and they've tried removing r/all from their main interface so you can only access it from old reddit. Not sure why anyone would want the new interface anyway. It's all a shitshow when you think back on it, lol.

 

[Dyne]

Reddit is awful. It is an echo chamber of bots and lunatics.

 

[Moreno909]

I think the future will be a retreat to smaller online communities, which is exactly where we are right now