💡Is the Internet « dying » without us noticing ?
Recently, I stumbled across an interesting post featuring a simple video of a laser-cutting machine. Nothing extraordinary, just a device cutting through a piece of steel. Yet, what surprised me was the great engagement generated as it gathered hundreds and hundreds of likes and dozens of shares. 🧐
As a junior researcher trying to share useful content about my field, it was a fascinating observation : is it that people are really into random videos of robots cutting objects (e.g. satisfying video’ trends), or could there be something else…
This made me think of a bizarre concept called the « Dead Internet Theory ». 🌐
First developed on an online forum called « Agora Road’s Macintosh Cafe » as a thread posted by a fanciful user named “IlluminatiPirate”, the theory started to become widely discussed after an article published in the American magazine The Atlantic.
🔍What is it about ?
The core of the theory consists of one main component : The Internet is essentially run by a cohort of bots, as the dominant form of online content is auto-generated. Therefore, the network is considered « dead » because most online interactions are driven by bots rather than real people. This is especially true with the rise of Chat-GPT, which blurs the line between human-made content and generative ones.
📊 The stat : Security firm Imperva released a study stating that half of the websites’ activity across the Internet is related to bot traffic, among which 30% are considered bad bots, including spammers and impersonators (bots that assume false identity). 🤖
This doesn’t necessarily imply that all of the Internet is fake. Another study revealed that humans still heavily use the Internet across the world. However, it feels like bot interactions are becoming more and more dominant.
🛜 Next time you interact with online content : know that you “statistically” have more chance of dealing with a bot.
👉 So, are we losing control of the Internet to AI and bots ? Or is it a transition to something new ?
