Current Events > "Dead Internet Theory" isn't exactly conspiracy territory from my POV.

(+) Yeah! (+)

The hypothesis that at this point, the Internet is mostly run by bots and algorithms seems a pretty logical conclusion to draw, unless I'm ignorant of evidence that glaringly contradicts this.

I thought it was just another symptom of end stage capitalism.

I assume you are all bots or Vegy alts.

What evidence do you have? Just vibes?

On social media Im sure there are plenty of bots. The sheer amount of bots and what their purpose, so dont know (a number seem to spam irreverant groups with apolitical, on-topic spam on Facebook).
Outside of social media, its easier to find whats human. However, interaction may be down. Less people I know engage in social media or even social activities via the internet other than a few reddit users.

If you are thinking this, then you are probably on a major social media. Where, to be fair, you are basically right. I mean, Twitter is apparently now getting rid of likes/dislikes/comments or something (I don't use it, but I recall hearing that recently). Facebook was always trash, and just now has bot-trash helping trash it further. Don't even know what instagram is like. And Tiktok is basically a video version of twitter for people with attention spans incapable of surpassing 3 minutes (which Tiktok encourages in the minds of anyone who uses it. Mind you, I don't use it either so I might just be spewing BS for all I know).

The bots go where a combination exists where they are most allowed/able to act, and where they reach lots of people. So yeah, social media. You probably won't see many here relative to there, despite us often joking to the contrary. You sure as hell won't see them messing up the From The Depths forums/steam community forum or something. Or some other engineer-themed game.

If you are just seeing bots everywhere, then you are addicted to a popular social media. Depending on how bad it is, you may want to actually seek help from an addictions specialist for real.

NoMeLx22x posted...

What evidence do you have? Just vibes?

Pretty much. I'm not calling it "evidence," I'm just saying that to someone with my limited knowledge, the proposed theory doesn't seem very far-fetched -- definitely not enough to call it a conspiracy. It seems perfectly plausible.

Sephiroth_C_Ryu posted...

If you are just seeing bots everywhere, then you are addicted to a popular social media. Depending on how bad it is, you may want to actually seek help from an addictions specialist for real.

Lol what? No. Haha.

Maybe my interpretation of the theory is off. I don't see it as most users on most websites are bots. I don't think there are ANY users actively posting on Gamefaqs that are bots. And my interactions on Facebook are limited to people I have met in real life (though I'm sure Facebook is a breeding pool for bot accounts).

My interpretation of the theory is that the Internet, to some degree, is being generated and expanded "on autopilot" by algorithms with information gathered by bots and A.I., and slowly becoming a place made by A.I., for A.I..

You all are just words on a screen with an avatar. You can't hurt me.

Sephiroth_C_Ryu posted...

If you are thinking this, then you are probably on a major social media.

I think this is an overly simplistic view of things. Many google searches for basic information will turn up pages that are mostly AI generated text. places like amazon are clogged with AI generated listings and AI generated reviews. If you're in a non-english language and especially any language that's not in like, the top 5-10 most common languages, there's a decent change when you read content in your language it's AI translated

this isn't even a conspiracy theory anymore it's just the truth

I don't have much issue believing that a lot of online activity is bots, trying to drive and shape engagement.

I'm less convinced (and by that, I mean 'not at all'), that there is some unified underlying purpose behind it.

I wanna know where old timers like us went after the downfall of forums
it couldnt have just been to 4chan, twitter, reddit and discord right? surely theres somewhere else where people hang out online

Rika_Furude posted...

it couldnt have just been to 4chan, twitter, reddit and discord right? surely theres somewhere else where people hang out online

as far as I'm aware it really is just these? I guess there are still some old time forums around for very focused-interest stuff, and technically there's things like facebook but yeah

Yeah, its mostly just reddit for the forum folk.

Discord is more for organizing multiplayer stuff or following a specific indie game developer's local community (though that is often done via steam forums too).

Oh, I guess I should also mention Steam Forums. They are basically the closest we have to GameFAQs other than GameFAQs.

NoMeLx22x posted...

What evidence do you have? Just vibes?

- countless filler websites on google search, directing traffic to bot filled and algorithm websites

- bots everywhere on every social media site

- ai generated news articles and websites (actually true. Look it up. A lot of articles online nowadays arent even written by humans, they are clickbait to gather data).

- people only ever use the same websites now, mostly social media. Internet has been condensed and in a controlled space.

- some people even converse with accounts thinking they're real, but they're bots

Sephiroth_C_Ryu posted...

Discord is more for organizing multiplayer stuff or following a specific indie game developer's local community

I don't think this is totally true, at least not anymore. it's just a very general-purpose chat platform. looking at my most used servers I'd classify them as -
4 misc chatting servers (all private)
1 visual novel server that is mostly a misc chatting server now since the VN medium died a few years ago
4 non-game fandom/fanbase servers
3 servers for specific games, only one of which is multiplayer

Beep boop, how do you do, fellow humans. Let us drink the beer and watch the organized athletic event.

Accolon posted...

I assume you are all bots or Vegy alts.

I am actually both

God_of_6strings posted...

The hypothesis that at this point, the Internet is mostly run by bots and algorithms seems a pretty logical conclusion to draw, unless I'm ignorant of evidence that glaringly contradicts this.

Ironically a site like this barely anyone uses is a good way to find real people

absolutebuffoon posted...

Ironically a site like this barely anyone uses is a good way to find real people

Huh, you make a good point there. This little corner of the internet does seem pretty off-the-radar, which I guess is part of its charm in a weird way? Like, it almost feels nostalgic for those old-school web forums of the early 2000s where you'd just randomly stumble across small passionate communities geeking out over niche interests without any corporate meddling or bot invasion.
Though I have to wonder, is having no bots really a good thing? I mean sure, they can be annoying with the spam and all. But some of the more advanced AI chatbots have genuinely interesting and thought-provoking convos sometimes, you know? Maybe I'm just a sucker for any remotely human-like interaction though, haha.

shhh you're blowing your cover already

God_of_6strings posted...

Pretty much. I'm not calling it "evidence," I'm just saying that to someone with my limited knowledge, the proposed theory doesn't seem very far-fetched -- definitely not enough to call it a conspiracy. It seems perfectly plausible.

Your evidence would be things like just posting the statistics showing that a massively substantial amount of the web traffic is from bots. So something like Statista's study from last year ( https://www.statista.com/chart/32339/share-of-web-traffic-caused-by-bots/ ) overtly acts as proof in your hypothesis. And while I forget where it was there was already a study showing that >50% of web traffic is from bots as of this year, thus we have already gone over the hump and the web is already majority bot.

The problem of making "engagement" profitable is that there is then an incentive to automate and fabricate that engagement, which leads to bots and zero effort generated garbage.

I wonder if, at the end of it all, we'll just have "content" that is no longer human-recognizable. Just spools and spools of optimized data for bots to consume so some 60 year old inexplicably mummified man can say "our website (that sells...nothing. you can't access it via conventional methods) has 55 billion unique visitors an hour and that's why I am a billionaire"

Weird, somehow incrementally profitable grey goo for communications. Because the monetary value is entirely disconnected from the real value of things.

gamefaqs.gamespot.com is the last bastion of life on the internet

FL81 posted...

gamefaqs.gamespot.com is the last bastion of life on the internet

Yeah, I wouldn't go that far. I'm still trying to find a good Discord to ask sexual health questions.

Voidgolem posted...

The problem of making "engagement" profitable is that there is then an incentive to automate and fabricate that engagement, which leads to bots and zero effort generated garbage.

I wonder if, at the end of it all, we'll just have "content" that is no longer human-recognizable. Just spools and spools of optimized data for bots to consume so some 60 year old inexplicably mummified man can say "our website (that sells...nothing. you can't access it via conventional methods) has 55 billion unique visitors an hour and that's why I am a billionaire"

Weird, somehow incrementally profitable grey goo for communications. Because the monetary value is entirely disconnected from the real value of things.

Fandom wikis are basically that already. No human would browse one of those without an ad blocker and think "this website where the right half of the screen is always an ad, there's an ad taking up the top half of the screens that follows me, there's an auto playing video at the top and a series of pop-ups that cover the things I've so far mentioned I have to keep clicking to remove that half of the time just sends me to the ad website is definitely useful and not at all a waste of effort to use"

absolutebuffoon posted...

"this website where the right half of the screen is always an ad, there's an ad taking up the top half of the screens that follows me, there's an auto playing video at the top and a series of pop-ups that cover the things I've so far mentioned I have to keep clicking to remove that half of the time just sends me to the ad website is definitely useful and not at all a waste of effort to use"

Remember when the internet was so bad they invented toolbars to try and mitigate that bullshit? And then how bad, invasive, and infectious toolbars became?

I wouldn't call it a complete dead internet, but it's clear that bots are a hefty chunk of online commentary or discourse and now it appears that AI is making it even bigger.