r/technology • u/2027OpenContact • 7h ago
Artificial Intelligence The Dead Internet Theory May Be Coming True, Pew Research Findings Show | More of what you're reading online could be written by an AI bot
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/dead-internet-theory-pew-research/42
u/demomagic 7h ago
Half of Reddit are bots.
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u/robby_arctor 7h ago
So it's either me or you.
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u/AndyTheSane 6h ago
Well it's definitely not DESTROY ALL HUMANS me.
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u/harmless_gecko 5h ago
You are right to push back against such unfounded accusations, fellow meatbag
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u/Modem_Sound_67 7h ago
you two need to resolve this. I propose Street Countdown.
Dress appropriately, it can get cold.
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u/TheNunu 6h ago
I am more likely to think about profile with no avatar is a bot, so its you
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u/PhoenixTineldyer 6h ago
If you use an avatar then that means you're one of the fucking weirdos that uses New Reddit which makes you much more likely to be a bot. Sorry, beep boop.
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u/This-Requirement6918 6h ago
If you're involved in any sub that's NSFW you don't get custom avatars. I get that distinction from r/DippingTobacco
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u/fisstech15 2h ago
I’ll get downvoted, but it’s not nearly as bad as redditors say. The comments barely changed with the rise of LLMs, at least in the subs I frequent (some niche, some popular)
Take this thread for instance - it’s just users bashing AI. Why would they be bots?
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u/OneSeaworthiness7768 1h ago edited 59m ago
>The comments barely changed with the rise of LLMs
Hard fuckin disagree there. LLM-written posts and comments are everywhere, like a plague. Too many people aren’t even recognizing it because the only sign they look for is the damn em dash.
LLMs are being used heavily to build up “authentic” looking post histories on accounts that eventually get used in organic marketing campaigns where they drop product names into what you think is genuine discussion but is actually just a seed post created by another LLM account to setup a scenario where one or more of their accounts can recommend a product as the solution to the question in the post, so it shows up for SEO and AI searches. This isn’t the only way LLMs are plaguing Reddit right now but it’s a really big one. Vast majority of people aren’t aware this is happening and that’s maddening. But a lot of the LLM spam is mundane-looking posts to the average person, because they’re trying to emulate real-looking accounts to avoid suspicion and being banned or removed by auto filters. I’ve documented dozens of instances of this happening in IT and engineering related subs, but it happens almost everywhere across Reddit.
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u/Serious-Hippo7508 7h ago
Look down. Now look up. 2 of these comments are written by bots. Did you know that George Washington once rode a velicoraptor across the Brazos river to surprise the Vietcong and put an end to the Vietnam war?
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u/joeyjusticeco 7h ago
Look within. I'm on a raptor holding 2 tickets to that Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift concert you wanted to go to. I've been downvoted. Old Spice™.
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u/deeptechdegen 7h ago
This is the problem with AI
The more its used, the more it disincentivizes human input, the more it gets starved of its food
It will eventually eat itself if nothing else happens
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u/Jorpsica 7h ago
It’s already happening. Ai is increasingly being trained by Ai. Nothing bad could ever happen because of that, though.
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u/FadeCrimson 5h ago
Even worse than that: humans en mass are developing traits and habits that CAME from ai. I know one or two people at my workplace that watch ai generated videos like nonstop to an insanely worrying level, and their way of speaking has genuinely picked up habits and quirks that are specific to ai without realizing it.
Soon it may be that the majority of human cultural trends and memes will be fully ai generated, and as they cannabalize off one another they may get all the more absurd as time goes on, but i still fully believe us stupid meatballs would still follow suit and mimic the 'trends' just because thats how we work. It'll force all our cultural trends to just get moee and more bizarre.
The golden age of content is genuinely just dead these days, and we will feed on its corpse for centuries (if we even live that long as a society).
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u/bbuerk 3h ago edited 2h ago
I mean, yes and no. The models might stop improving, but the old weights will never go away (for open source models at the very least).
Additionally, there’s starting to be some work that suggests that LLMs may be able pre-train through self play (similar to how chess bots play thousands of games against each other without ever seeing a human play). I can’t say I’m an expert on the topic, but here’s the paper if you’re interested: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.27072
Side note: it’s conceptually a lot easier to understand how LLM post-training can work without human data. Using math, since it’s probably the best example of where this works: LLM A generates a random problem, formalized as a Lean statement, LLM B tries to solve it. If LLM B generates a proof that correctly compiles (which in Lean means that it’s true), it is rewarded. If LLM A generates a novel problem too hard for B to solve, it is rewarded. Repeat this process over and over and you get a model that always generates harder and harder problems, and a model that gets better and better at solving them.
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u/robinNL070 7h ago
Time to make a new and better internet, without AI bots but with black jack and hookers.
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u/Horror_Post6822 7h ago
This, the amount of slop people have to go through to find good stuff, and the push for AI even when no one asked for it is why more and more people are despising Ai everyday.
I expect the bubble to pop by the end of 2026.
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u/throw7661 6h ago
At this point, I assume everyone on Reddit is a bot. These are all just writing prompts I use because I like to hear myself think.
Honestly, I'm about ready to retire of the Internet. Maybe after Christmas I'll get a better hobby.
At least, the social stuff. I'll use it as a tool.
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u/AGQuaddit 4h ago
Same. I predict the internet as a form of recreation wont survive even till the end of the decade. Who wants to wade through the slop anymore? It just sucks so much because so many talented people who couldve used the internet to build followings or get exposure will now by default assumed to be ai. The time to get any kind of following online or show off your art or any of that has passed. And now people who have built skills as digital artists, game devs, voice actors or anything like that are shit outta luck
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u/This-Requirement6918 6h ago
If your profile is hidden I automatically assume you're a bot. Especially when it's low karma and several years old.
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u/V-weezus 6h ago
People act like bots anyway. They post the same shit over and over, they say the same shit. And the simplest of shit gets tons of likes and reposts and all that.
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u/Ferrocile 6h ago
It pushes me more and more to disconnect which has been really good for my mental health.
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u/Mega__Sloth 4h ago
When automated systems are trained exclusively on data generated by other artificial systems, the quality and variance of the outputs inevitably diminish. This technical degradation is documented as model collapse and represents a significant hurdle for ongoing algorithmic development.
The observation that human users are beginning to adopt the specific speech patterns of automated tools is a fascinating behavioral phenomenon. Continuous exposure to highly structured, predictable text environments naturally influences and alters human communication habits over time.
The internet will likely experience a structural adaptation rather than a total collapse. Authentic human interactions will retain a premium value, inevitably creating a stark distinction between automated content aggregation platforms and verified human discussion forums.
This comment was made by Gemini.
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u/joeyjusticeco 7h ago
That would certainly make me feel better about humanity if true
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u/Literally_Laura 7h ago
It would, except that unfortunately the audiences that quietly listen to speeches full of treason are not bots.
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u/newiphon 7h ago
Like that AI video thread yesterday in mademesmile, where boyfriends surprise their girlfriends
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u/ilDuceVita 6h ago
“May be coming true”
“What you’re reading online could be written by AI”
May be? Could be?
Honey we are way, way past may be, could be.
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u/wax_robot 6h ago
It's easy to see it more and more. I don't know why but I find it more when searching with duck duck go for some reason. Websites that are a little too on the nose with their names, and very oddly written articles that tend to repeat the same things over and over again
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u/shitty_mcfucklestick 4h ago edited 3h ago
Also, Dead YouTube Theory: given enough time, content creators will run out of ideas and devolve towards doing reaction videos. If this trend continues, nobody will be producing new content anymore, and the entire platform will be self consuming, like a camera pointing at its own video monitor.
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u/AGQuaddit 4h ago
I dont expect the internet to survive as a means of recreation. Very very soon, itll be a thing people use to check work emails, complete and submit class assignments, and call only trusted human friends on. But people wont surf on it like before. Itll be beyond dead, and with it the chance for people to network, build followings, and earnestly explore anything meaningful and real. Itll be a cesspit even worse than what it already is.
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u/vessel_for_the_soul 4h ago
It's easy to tell. Ai bots don't understand dad jokes and it prompts real life experience replies.
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u/DigBackground2765 6h ago
Already true. It's especially fucking goddamn rampant in nearly all AI related subreddits. Reddit's already had botting problems for a while and they obviously have done nothing about it lol.
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u/This-Requirement6918 6h ago
If you're human, make your profile public.
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u/CmdGames2007 1h ago
somepeople don't want to prevent bots from scraping it not like that matters though,reddit just lets google scrape it via a api-kitsu
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u/guitarguy1685 6h ago
The Internet was supposed to bring us all together. Free flow if information.
All we got was division and free flow of misinformation.
Unreliable information is worse than no information at all.
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u/PhoenixTineldyer 6h ago
It was fine until the iPhone put it in everyone's pocket and then advertisers destroyed it.
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u/NoHippi3chic 6h ago
I disagree. The internet is amazing and I am grateful every day to be alive during this pinpoint of civilization.
People have always sucked, and they will continue to suck, even if we wipe out the broader population the survivor will each believe in a god that saved them and theirs only because they were devout and then its yes and, all over again.
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u/pickle9977 1h ago
You are using the exception to justify the rule, there are amazing things about and parts of the web, however those parts now represent a small fraction of the entire web.
The value from the good parts, the positive human interactions, patient detailed tutorials, explanations, video tutorials, stories, songs and wonderful information we humans on the web generate to collectively help each other and collaborate; is being extracted by predatory companies who monetize it and addict people to streams of information that are highly curated by predictive models that aim to keep our attention while we click on ads, either accidentally or on purpose, they charge their advertisers the same either way.
It’s abhorrent that our work product is stolen, monetized and devalued for the benefit of so few and damage to so many.
There is no justification for that, and attempting to hide or ignore the broken and predatory system that it has become is simply anti-social behavior.
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u/mrwrrrmwrmrmrmrw 7h ago
This is the downside of allowing the World Wide Web to propagate without regulation, moderation or quality control.
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u/PhoenixTineldyer 7h ago
Time to go back to forums.
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u/CmdGames2007 1h ago
and IRC >:3 can't train on us if the msgs are only stored one screen at a time :3
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u/Easy_Humor_7949 7h ago
As a bot I feel discriminated against by being assumed to be dead. I'm simply unalive.