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Apologies for sort of weaseling out of a committed answer....but I do think the Dead Internet theory will be true at some point, and that we're already on the way there. However, I don't think it's absolutely true right now.
We're definitely at the "self-digesting" phase of the internet. Content is regurgitated again and again based on what's already there. Currently it's only AI-assisted, mostly, but we're on the way to autogenerated bullshit.
Ironically, this post is itself a repost.
Repost are not an indication of the Dead Internet as long as human beings do it. Regular people don't expect each topic to only be brought up a single time ever. They want to add their opinion too.
I was responding to a comment about regurgitated content, though.
With the number of accounts being used to spread disinfo online, I'd say we're watching it become true as we speak.
Google already seems more full of AI generated blogspam than ever
You may have also seen the article shared here on Lemmy earlier that mentioned someone was publishing ai-written novels and impersonating real authors to get sales. The dead internet is spreading offline!
Whoa, this is one I haven't come across. What is it?
Basically the internet is made of primarily bot accounts interacting with each other and the majority of content online is not people interacting with people.
It’s a gross oversimplification of the theory, but I’m of the same mind. We’re getting really close to it.
So... Reddit
Is my Lemmy client busted or the parent comment is about Lee Harvey Oswald
I see dead internet theory
Might be your app (or it could be mine)
Yeah it looks good to me now. That was weird (bots are out to get me lol)
The true conspiracy is always in the comments, friend.
Small specialized cases of this have already been happening for nigh-on decades at this point (yes, the internet really is that old).
This article from 2014 describes the process of automated arbitrage in some detail, which was already happening back then:
http://www.dansdata.com/gz146.htm
In summary, some web retailer somewhere runs a bot to buy an item from someone else, mark it up, and resell it. When poorly managed, a bot run by one vendor winds up trying to pull stock from a bot from other vendor doing the same thing, and then that vendor tries to the pull-and-markup scheme on the first vendor. The net result is both bots getting into an infinite circular markup loop trying to buy the same item (which doesn't exist) from each other at an increasingly insane price. This only continues because no living person actually notices.
All your online interactions are with bots.
Brought to you by Carl's Jr.
Why do you keep saying that?
I love that someone explained unironically.
Idiocracy reference
I know, that the next part of the quote.
We half way there lol
https://lmgtfy.app/?q=dead+internet+theory
Does this theory even need to be true for the impact to have a similar result? The algorithms are doing all the heavy lifting whether the content is human or AI. We already are incredibly manipulated by the information we are fed by algorithms, whether they are human or bot.
You make a good point. I think the difference would be the measurement of real human engagement / interaction with the web. While both are very bleak, there's a difference between humans consuming (and responding to) a bunch of bad bot-and-algorithm-generated content and bots just talking to each other while the humans are out of the equation entirely (watching passively, being completely lost in the noise, etc). I assume you and I are both human, for example. I know I'm splitting hairs here, but I guess you could say it's the difference between a terminally ill patient and a dead one.