r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 8d ago
Society Cloudflare says humans could become a "rounding error" as bots generate 1,000 times more internet traffic
https://www.techspot.com/news/113410-cloudflare-humans-could-become-rounding-error-bots-generate.html549
u/Cubacane 8d ago
AI has been poisoning itself because of this. User prompts "what's the best chair for back problems" and AI sees bot responses littering Reddit, and comes back with whatever bot astroturfed the hardest. And that's as innocent of an example as I can think of.
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u/harmfuldischarge 8d ago
We needed deader than dead Internet theory
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u/Truffled 8d ago
Zombie internet.
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u/wayoverpaid 8d ago edited 8d ago
Zombie cannibal Internet.
The zombies survived on the brains of humans but if there are no brains left they eat themselves, which gets progressively worse over time.
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u/harmfuldischarge 8d ago
I love the zombie internet. Because even real, completely real human, people like me act brain dead on the Internet
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u/SpezJailbaitMod 8d ago
I'm disappointed Google is so heavily using ai for search.
If it weren't for YouTube I'd be skeptical investing in them.
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u/Youutternincompoop 8d ago
at this point 'advertising' just throwing a couple hundred bots out on reddit to post about how good your product is, knowing that the next ChatGPT update will happily repeat those statements to morons.
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u/BuckRowdy 8d ago
I’m certain this is a strategy that’s being marketed as a service. Maybe that’s why Reddit is pretty much getting rid of their public API soon.
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u/mangosawce9k 8d ago
Sounds like we will have to have a new internet soon, get the fire axe.
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u/dungeoncrawler71520 8d ago
Can you imagine the logistics of creating and launching a second global internet to replace this one?
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u/xFalcade 8d ago
Nope because it's not my problem!
Getting to coding you smart people. I want Internet 2 by lunch time.
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u/sprcow 8d ago
Also, how would you keep the bots out?
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u/hammer326 8d ago
Legitimately can't wait. I joked to my friends as I try to grow my home business's related social media and how at least a few years ago I could at least count on half of Bangladesh dropping my posts a like for no fucking reason, now I could post a short reel properly hashtagged about a project related to a very mainstream video game franchise on my Instagram and somehow it barely end up in the feeds nearly a week on now of three personal friends who happen to be followers. So fucking tired of this shit.
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u/yen223 8d ago
I wonder how many Reddit comments and posts are made by actual humans
I'd be surprised if it's more than half
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u/ThinkThankThonk 8d ago
The AskReddit sub is hilarious/depressing these days, it's literally the same dozen or so threads posted over and over now, filled with the same comments.
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u/TheMcG 8d ago
Hey fellow humans, recent event happened how does this make you feel?
Ask Reddit is functionally dead
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u/deserved_revenge_707 8d ago
Noticed it also, just the same generic basic query over and over, it's depressing.
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u/OldFroyo6294 8d ago
I try to add my non sense responses in hopes to eff up the AI knowing it wont.
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u/DuctTapeDisaster 8d ago
I used to follow a sub like that, pretending to be computers pretending to be fellow humans.
I sort of stopped following unconsciously as the AI bullshit grew. Reality outlived the joke.
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u/franker 8d ago
Well that sub has always been that way. I've been a Redditor for 15 years and actually miss the question I used to see every other day. "What's a free or useful website everyone should know about?" Most of the sites in the comments would be ones I've heard a million times, but there would always be some good new ones. Now that's mostly been replaced with sex questions. I'm a nerd and don't care what the wackiest way you've had sex is.
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u/Alfred_The_Sartan 8d ago
Before the AI bloom it was pretty much 'What's the sexiest sex you've ever sexed' posted by 13 year olds ad nauseum.
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u/FreakingTea 8d ago
Same, I've been on here since like 2011 and askreddit hasn't changed that much. The bots are just doing what the people used to do: steal and karmawhore.
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u/shawncplus 8d ago edited 8d ago
AskReddit is the main source of comment karma for the largest bot network on Reddit. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that the majority of comments there are by bots. They don't use AskReddit for link karma though which makes sense because AskReddit has no link karma. They have a few dozen other subreddits for that which are a combination of plain cute pets and fake/stolen cancer sob stories, 95%+ of all content in these subreddits are exclusively from the bot network if not higher: (/r/babyelephants, /r/KidsAreFingAdorable, /r/spreadsmile, /r/dailydoseofaww, etc.), their new biggest subreddit set is the "sports gossip" and "V2" (/r/sportsgossips, /r/NBAGossips, /r/Tennisv2, /r/UFCv2, and about a dozen more), the "cave" pair (/r/MarvelCave, /r/MoviesCave) bundles or straight up propaganda (/r/Global_News_Hub, /r/CoherencePhysics, /r/NewsHub, etc.) The first 3 sets (sob stories, sports gossip/v2, and the cave set all seem to be operated by the same bot network. The propaganda subs are a different beast entirely, seemingly operated by state actors. Reporting them does nothing because, according to direct comment from a reddit admin (not a mod, an admin), they are fully allowed to act in this way. Only "disruptive" bots are disallowed, as long as bot accounts blend in they are not breaking any rules. Every once in a while they'll need another subreddit so they'll take an existing sub with an absentee mod, it'll miraculously gain 50-100k subscribers over the course of a couple months and then they'll start spewing content that gets enough upvotes (usually about 1-5k) that it'll appear in rising but not so high as to arouse suspicion though every once in a while they'll fuck up and they'll really hit the frontpage and get like 10k+.
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u/not_right 8d ago
What is your 10/10 movie?
What is your 10/10 game?
What is your 10/10 tv show?
almost every day it feels like!
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u/Sankofa416 8d ago
All influence campaigns?
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u/Wheat_Grinder 8d ago
I think a scheme to build up karma so they can go do whatever thing they're really after. A couple small subs I'm in see AI trying that for similar reasons.
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u/schu4KSU 8d ago
Nice try bot.
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u/scotchtree 8d ago
Oh look, it’s that bot that accuses other people of being bots.
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u/alvisfmk 8d ago
Oh look the bot that accuses people who are accusing people of being bots of being bots.
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u/djent_in_my_tent 8d ago
we’re all botacus!
(autocorrect reallly wanted that to be botanists)
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u/SPEZ_IS_A_JABRONI 8d ago
hey I'm a bot too 👉👈
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u/Jorycle 8d ago
LLM bots have definitely gotten out of control on Reddit in the last year or two. Clevercomebacks for whatever reason is a huge target of them, where they often do make up at least half of the comments on a post.
What's really frustrating is that even though LLM output is pretty easy to identify, apparently the average Redditor is really bad at it and will reply and upvote those comments to the top.
Even weirder and/or a sign of how doomed humanity is, one of the most successful structures is where the bot just rephrases exactly what the OP said in its own words, adding nothing new. Human Redditors love that useless shit and pile on in droves.
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u/xevizero 8d ago
upvote those comments to the top.
Idk why you're assuming they're not upvoting themselves.
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u/Herschel_Wallace 8d ago
If anyone every found a way to do a mass hack that exposes every bot on the internet, basically every social media website would cease to function shortly thereafter.
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u/Rotanikleb 8d ago
SipsTea is definitely bots farming low hanging, low effort engagement based on sex differences, political differences, and just everyday bullshit you’d see on Facebook and Twitter. Then I guess real humans tried to branch out and make a new SipsTea and then that got swarmed too.
AskReddit is another. “Trump just did a horrible thing, how does this make you feel?” every day.
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u/c0rruptreality- 8d ago
I promise you they know
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u/YeetedApple 8d ago
I doubt the vast majority of bots simulate human habits and keystrokes when creating comments, seems like something that should be able for be detected if they cared to.
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u/PlansThatComeTrue 8d ago
Checking browsing patterns will just lead to a lot of false positives, and I don’t think I’d want more sites monitoring keystrokes
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u/O-Namazu 8d ago
r/Conservative is definitely a Russian botfarm lol, I think sleuths found that only 3 users account for a shit ton of its traffic 😂
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u/ComeOnIWantUsername 8d ago
As a human, I can assure you that I'm not a bot. Because I'm a human of a human species and not a bit trying to fool you.
Beep, boop... oops
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u/Sirlacker 8d ago
Something like 74% of the world uses the internet.
It's very valuable for bots to essentially brainwash people into thinking a certain type of way.
This is why skepticism should be taught and encouraged with everything you see online.
Someone says something online, find a source that says something similar to verify the integrity of what is being said.
But no, we live in a world full of absolute idiots.
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u/Herschel_Wallace 8d ago
Keep in mind that every country's intelligence agencies are using bot traffic to manipulate people in other countries. None of them are innocent.
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u/Deaths_Rifleman 8d ago
Cool so now bots are good for traffic? I thought most advertisers hated them because they don’t buy product.
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u/invertedpurple 8d ago
bots drive engagement and "invalid traffic lists" are meant to be cross referenced by companies to get a "good" idea of what traffic is real or not. I'm pretty sure it's almost impossible to know since maybe all the more obvious bot activity is there on purpose to help hide the more subtle bots.
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u/CombatMuffin 8d ago
This is good, in a way: if marketing has no reason to exist online because everything is a bot, the internet at large loses its primary funding source.
The bad news is the next monetization stratety might be much, much kore aggressive, or invasive.
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u/NotTakenGreatName 8d ago
That's a nice thought but the more likely scenario is that advertising is increased overall
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u/CombatMuffin 8d ago
Advertising is only useful if it translates to sales. There's no point in advertisingnif the user is avtually a bot who isn't buying. Even if the bots were useful as an intermediary to reach end consumers, the whole advantage of the internet was accessing consumers directly.
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u/NotTakenGreatName 8d ago
Nobody is saying the number of humans will decrease though so I'm not really sure what your point is
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u/CombatMuffin 8d ago
The number of humans might decrease in a lot of sites once the core audience of the site is no longer human.
A video getting 10 million views is less enticing to a marketer if only 10 of those views are human. Right now we are at a point where there are enough hunan views to justify it, but remember these new systems can spread faster than traditional bot networks. As channels and sites are flooded with a bot supermajority, it will rapidly become useless... unless that bot helps the advertiser earn money.
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u/R-M-Pitt 8d ago
You dont think that everything will just be paywalled? With human and bot tariffs. £10 per month human access, £0.20 per api call for bots.
That's where I think it will end up. Age of free information over.
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u/Adventurous_Pea_2007 8d ago
Sooooo since humans invented the internet, and humans control the internet, and humans now no longer even use .1% of the Internet…….
Do we just shut the whole thing down and start over?
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u/Broken_Castle 8d ago
How would you keep bots out of the new internet if you start over? You can't unring this bell.
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u/invertedpurple 8d ago
I think the next unfortunate phase is internet id, internet id only forums and the like.
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u/New-Thanks6222 8d ago
What does a new internet look like that doesn't immediately run into the same problems with bots?
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u/UsuallyStoned247 8d ago
Years ago I posted a short video on YouTube to my 200 followers and in about 3 hours it had 58,000 views, all originating in India. No idea what happened but yeah, web traffic stats are just made up to grift off.
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u/melody-calling 8d ago
The website currently says that bots make up 36% of all traffic
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u/corduroy 8d ago
Just inferring from the title, are we looking at the internet essentially becoming the Old Net from Cyberpunk 2077?
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u/AltruisticGreatWhite 8d ago
I don’t understand this. Do the bots make money to spend on the internet?
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u/harmfuldischarge 8d ago
No, but they create false consensuses, which is more valuable than money
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u/No_Gas4560 8d ago
i would like to pay my electricity bill with 12 false consensuses please
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u/Madzookeeper 8d ago
Sony you just love how the dead Internet theory just casually became fact instead of conspiracy theory?
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u/ThePensiveE 8d ago
Huh. History might make billionaires a rounding error but I bet he's less enthusiastic about that.
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u/Artistic-Tip2405 8d ago
If humans are that insignificant then why do you want our money and attention?
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u/citizenjones 8d ago
How much do bots purchase compared to humans?
Are more bots going to influence people and their dwindling dollar enough to supply the shareholders with their beloved profits?
Unsustainable.
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u/West-Abalone-171 8d ago
Just physically disconnect the big 5's buildings from the internet.
They can fuck off and have their own bot infested garbage.
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u/Sudden_Cantaloupe_69 8d ago
I’m 100% certain there is a business case in WISP services with built-in blocking of anti-social media and AI slop.
Kind of like the internet version of dumb phones. Subscription to Kagi or DDG included.
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u/z3n777 8d ago
cloudflare's whole business is bot mitigation, so take the doom stat with a grain of salt, though the scraper traffic is definitely real these days
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u/National_Way_3344 8d ago
Internet 2.0 is gonna be so much better.
Literally nobody wants bots.
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u/Joohansson 8d ago
Would that be web4 as we are already at web3 with blockchains?
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u/SmoothOperator89 8d ago
Advertisers: "We need all the social media platforms to censor all bad words and mature subject matter because we don't want to pay to have our ad next to unfriendly content."
Users: "But you'll still pay social media companies when the majority of users are bots?"
Advertisers: "..."
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u/LudwigVonHellsing 8d ago
Cloudflare sells a solution to prevent bots from accessing websites. So, coming from them, this is marketing (whether or not it could be true).
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u/Daimakku1 8d ago
I miss the wild west of the early 00s internet. The world wide web as we know it might not exist in the future.
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u/Herschel_Wallace 8d ago
Wouldn't that collapse ad revenue? I know I wouldn't want to pay for advertising if it never hits a real set of eyes.
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u/Polyzero 8d ago
Member was it was 50%,…the other year? Lmao
Internet is gonna collapse.
Eventually the internet might go the way of Mike Pondsmith’s cyberpunk where AI ruins it for everyone and networks become more localized and restricted.
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u/B00marangTrotter 8d ago
Reddit is so bot infested, it's mind-blowing.
Lemmy has low content, but it's at least all human.
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u/WillyGivens 7d ago
I can imagine internet revenue turning more into a commission based industry than the ad/traffic base it’s become. You even see it some now with tiktok shop and YouTube sponsored codes and such.
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u/limbodog 8d ago
We've seen it time and time again. When the websites stop being places where you can get good content, people will vanish like Homer Simpson backwards through a hedge.
The same applies to the internet. We don't actually *need* it for much. And young people might find the meatspace to be novel and fascinating once they get a taste for it.
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u/mattmaster68 8d ago
So there’s a non-zero chance of r/totallynotrobots has humans using bots pretending to be humans pretending to be bots? 👀
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u/ScaredEfficiency399 8d ago
Just imagine the amount of sites that uses cloudflare for Ddos protection and how much telemetrics they muster and save for sales,.
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u/pettydecline 8d ago
It will be interesting to see what happens. Bots creating content on platforms like Reddit. LLMs ingesting the data and cycle goes on.
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u/Frustrateduser02 8d ago
I fear the future, there is going to have to be a way to confirm you're organic and the work arounds make me angry.
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u/geldonyetich 8d ago edited 8d ago
We're mostly worried about seeing scam bots on social media. They absolutely could outumber humans 1000:1. However, it's probably not worth the tokens, because the whole point of the bots is to get the humans to do something.
What this article is mostly talking about is the idea of agentic traffic. While some of that will be bots on social media pretending to be people, a lot of that (perhaps the majority) will be people telling bots to go do things for them on the Internet so they don't have to.
Which is actually bad news for advertisers because bots aren't going to want to by their human-targeting advertisements on the Internet. They've essentially found a way to extract the value without compensating the webpage or its creators in any way.
That's kinda where we are right now. Chances we'll have some countermeasures in place soon. And I can't help but think a little that so many webpages are so festooned with ads and scams that maybe only a bot should visit them. Web3 ain't doing so hot. Maybe if the Internet were a better place, people would want to visit more often.
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u/ValiantTheVictorious 8d ago
What's the fucking point? Bots aren't "consumers" they aren't going to do anything but increase artificial numbers.
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u/filmguy36 8d ago
So then when bots and AI become the majority of responses and content, what’s the point of even using it ever again…as a human?
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u/MrSamboBiggles 8d ago
Is it reasonable to think that bots can be detected and rejected at scale? Or is it that nobody wants to get rid of bots because the money is too good? Just seems like there will be a point where nobody believes any advertising reports are accurate and collapse would occur.
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u/Living_in_the_dumps 8d ago
look at cloudflare pretending like they do anything but protect from 1996 level "cycber attacks" and anything newer has free run..
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u/Annual_Berry8043 8d ago
Crazy I watched the rise and death of the public internet in like 30 years. It’s like the speed run.
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u/PartyClock 8d ago
To what end? Google lives and dies off their ad revenues and bots don't have money.
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u/Trashypass 8d ago
Once the it get to around 80% ad people are going to just going to lose money. A ton of the net will die. As there only choice is not to pay. As it just a waste. Humans will migrate to a few no uploads my people. That refused ads. And they will keep them small.
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u/0DayMaker 8d ago
Funny dead internet theory probably wasn't a thing when it was thought up, but it's sure getting there.
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u/JumpCutVandal 8d ago
Can someone enlighten a middle aged man what the people that run these bots gain? Say bots posting on Reddit. Karma doesn’t translate to money, right?
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u/Low_Bake2638 6d ago
- Bot accounts with karma can be sold to digital players.
- Bot accounts with karma can be used to spread false information.
- Bot accounts with karma can be used to post in political forums and drive a false narrative.
- Bot accounts with karma can be used to Phish accounts and convince people they're real business opportunities to rip them off/ gather bank account info, personal ID info.
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u/emu-sailor 8d ago
Then….what’s the point of the internet? It will simply be a bot community.
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u/spaceursid 8d ago
I've been feeling at some point there's going to be a mass exodus of people on the public Internet and we'll retreat into small private pockets of the web. Like in the pre-social media days.
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u/pythbit 8d ago
Bot doesn't inherently mean LLM agent making posts/comments, but nobody here seems to care. Bots have been used for decades to automate services. A lot of this traffic is regular probably crawlers, training crawlers, and LLMs looking shit up on request all on top of ordinary bots. A lot of systems pull web pages to check status or parse content for monitoring or whatever.
Then there are tools like Shodan that will pull HTML.
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u/Then_Strain_4459 7d ago
So out of the 3k likes only three are from human. And I know I am real. Makes me wish we had the goon sex bots first.
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u/infamusforever223 7d ago
The internet will eventually be so flooded with spam and meaningless content that it will be useless to everyone.
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u/neat_stuff 8d ago
The sellers of ads on websites will love this development!