this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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AI spam is already starting to ruin the internet::We're starting to see one prediction come true of how artificial intelligence will affect the internet: AI-generated spam is flooding the web.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Right?? Haha it's been a sespool of ads and trackers for ads for years now

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Finalizing its death*

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So, someone can look at this festering putrid hellscape we call the internet in the past 5 years and still see a way down?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Well sure. Only an optimist goes "Wow, this is as bad as it can get."

The pessimistic crowd is of the opinion it can ALWAYS get worse. We may not know how, but it can get worse.

I think it is obvious where I am on the spectrum when I say I don't think we've begun to see how bad it can get.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Meh. Email was going to implode before someone came up with baysean filters and Gmail became a thing. Last time I checked (once in a blue moon), email still works.

Certainly 99.999% of SMTP traffic is garbage but my inbox is still usable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

A web crawler is not comparable to an e-mail inbox.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I've seen countless palworld articles climb to the top of Google. They are awful... They don't even have correct information about the game. Google really is imploding before our eyes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Even before the big AI thing this was a common thing for trendy games. Frustrating is it would be websites that arent even gaming focused that would get "top 10 x" or "how to get x in popular game" or "console commands for game x!" . And of course since the top result isnt a game website it was just trying to grab clicks it was a not great or complete article.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

The irony of some of the articles being clearly written by AI while also being about "Palword because someone said AI" is rich.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah agreed on that you can't Google thing anymore. People were speaking of enshitification, I was thinking they were exaggerating, but seing the results around palworld that crazy. Try to find a site with egg combination base don parents. Good luck I got a good one in page 4-5.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I rely on Google Search far less now than I used to for this reason. People had already gotten Google SEO down to a science and were poisoning search results very effectively. This AI-generated bullshit is taking it to a whole new level.

I've decided to use alternative search engines like DDG, SearXNG, etc. hoping their indexing criteria will be different enough current SEO techniques won't affect them as much... For now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I am using Paulgo.io's instance. Do all instances have the same index or each one it's own?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I'm optimistic. I like that this is ruining the existing commercialized model, but not the 00s one (used by nobody, but).

This also follows Lem's Megabit Bomb, he has been very good at predicting future we will have and describing future we'd like to have (two completely different things).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's a pretty obscure reference, at least in English. For those wondering, I found this in a bibliography of Stanisław Lem:

Bomba megabitowa (The Megabit Bomb, 1999) – Collection of essays about the potential downside of technology, including terrorism and artificial intelligence.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Well, yes, it may be obscure, but it's amazing to see our development so well described with the feel of something retrofuturistic, think Pascal, monochrome terminal displays, Nostromo-like spaceships ...

TBF I'm not sure which things I remember from there and which from Summa Technologiae.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Who knew the black wall from cyberpunk would end up being real but with adds!

How long until we get internet 2.0 walled garden for humans?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Seems like there are more minuses than adds

[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 54 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

The dead Internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts that the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content that is manipulated by algorithmic curation, marginalizing organic human activity. Proponents of the theory believe these bots are created intentionally to help manipulate algorithms and boost search results in order to ultimately manipulate consumers. Furthermore, some proponents of the theory accuse government agencies of using bots to manipulate public perception, stating: "The U. S. government is engaging in an artificial intelligence powered gaslighting of the entire world population.

^to^ ^opt^ ^out^^,^ ^pm^ ^me^ ^'optout'.^ ^article^ ^|^ ^about^

[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How ironic, but i still love this bot

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

I think that some bots are like, exceptions that prove the rule in a way. Like when we find one that's convenient and useful and facilitates human understanding and communication, it sticks out.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah like this. Bots talking to bots. Some of them use llms, but it's not necessary.

I'm here for the human element.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago
  • 2014: bots trading with bots
  • 2024: bots talking with bots
  • 2034: bots ???ing with bots
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