Sam Altman is an interesting character to say the least.
There is little doubt the guy is a genius. A case could also be made, however, that is one who tends to be divorced from reality. While his futuristic visions are impressive, self-awareness is not exactly his forte. Of course, he is not alone in this as many highly intelligent (and successful) people fall into this category.
For years, Altman dismissed the Dead Internet Theory is nothing more than nonsense. On this, he also was not alone. Many have placed it akin to a conspiracy theory. Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster and the Dead Internet Theory are all the same. I wonder if Alex Jones covered this too.
Altman is changing his tune. He is now starting to see the potential of it.
Let us take a look at what Sam is thinking and how this might come into play.
According to the statistics, along with one's belief in how to define this, this theory might already have come in being.
The data paints a stark picture. Cybersecurity firms like Imperva report that by 2023, 49% of internet traffic was generated by bots, a figure that increased to 51% in 2024, meaning more traffic on the internet is now produced by automated systems than by humans. Of these bots, 37% are malicious, spreading fake news and disinformation. Furthermore, there is a proliferation of “AI slop”—low-quality AI-generated content that clutters the digital ecosystem, exacerbating the problem of authenticity and trust.
It appears that 2024, the traffic generated by bots exceeded that of humans. This is a trend that is unlikely to reverse. In fact, we will see it only increasing as time passes.
Many are concerned by the 37% figure. That is more than 1/3 of the total of bot generated traffic that is malicious or nefarious in nature. However, the reverse is 63% does not fit under this label.
The question going forward is whether this figure increases or decreases as a percentage of the total. If it increase, that would be dystopian. Basically, the Internet would be dead then.
Altman is already getting that feeling.
Altman recently admitted on his social platform X that he never took this theory seriously until he started noticing an overwhelming number of Twitter accounts run by large language models (LLMs) like those behind ChatGPT. The irony is palpable: the creator of one of the most influential AI language models now fears AI could be making the internet feel “dead” and less human.
Is this a move by Altman to somehow promote what he has planned for ChatGPT. After all, if the Internet feels "dead" with the present bots, perhaps his will make it "come back to life".
That is nothing more than speculation on my part but I find it impossible to take anything about Altman at face value. Personally, he makes Zuckerberg seem like a choir boy in comparison.
What happens as the amount of traffic generated by humans increases to, say 90%)?
This is a real possibility. The parallel I used on many occasions is calculations and how, almost 100%, of the totals we see online were derived by computers.
We are going to see the capabilities of these bots increasing. At the same time, robots are going to be connected, providing more traffic that is valuable to the flow of society.
It is easy to get caught up in the present state of things. Bots can be valuable generators of information. We are still in the early stages. That said, we can already envision how communication with these entities overtakes things such as search.
Does this make the percentage above move in favor of positive results. After all, the flow of information is key. The "reader" of said data really is not relevant. What is important is that it gets acted upon.
Is the humancentric approach the proper one? There are many instances where machines are better at things than humans. This is not a new lesson.
What is different this time is we are seeing cognitive ability being created. This is scaring people into believe we are going to live in a world run by machines. I have news for everyone: we already do.
