What is the dead internet theory?

spectratg

spectratg

Senior Member
Location
Adamstown, MD
If you search “shrimp Jesus” on Facebook, you might encounter dozens of images of artificial intelligence (AI) generated crustaceans meshed in various forms with a stereotypical image of Jesus Christ. Some of these hyper-realistic images have garnered more than 20,000 likes and comments. So what exactly is going on here? The “dead internet theory” has an explanation: AI and bot-generated content has surpassed the human-generated internet.

The dead internet theory essentially claims that activity and content on the internet, including social media accounts, are predominantly being created and automated by artificial intelligence agents. These agents can rapidly create posts alongside AI-generated images designed to farm engagement (clicks, likes, comments) on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. As for shrimp Jesus, it appears AI has learned it’s the current, latest mix of absurdity and religious iconography to go viral.

But the dead internet theory goes even further. Many of the accounts that engage with such content also appear to be managed by artificial intelligence agents. This creates a vicious cycle of artificial engagement, one that has no clear agenda and no longer involves humans at all. The theory posits that bots and AI agents are responsible for creating much of the content online, such as social media posts, comments, and even images.
 

Personally, I see no purpose to images of sacrilege in the form of crustaceans, unless the way it's used is somehow generating revenue to whatever source created it.

I viewed a science link which appears to be the basis for your post. After the authors elaborated on the story you presented, they concluded with: "The dead internet theory is [simply] a reminder to be skeptical and navigate social media and other websites with a critical mind."
 
I have noticed for a while now that a large percentage of my FB feed images are AI generated... some obvious and some more difficult to spot. What I didn't know is that there's a name for it. "Dead Internet" seems appropriate. Scary part is that it's harder to pick out the fakes now... the hands used to be a giveaway, but AI is perfecting even hands now.

A lot of times, the images are completely false news stories... erroneous "reporting" of events that didn't happen to fit into one particular agenda or another. Even scarier than it happening, I think, is that so many people fall for it as witnessed by the comment sections.
 

Not a big fan of AI , to be honest ... it was fun to try out the image maker for about 5 minutes -- but people who pass off AI as real art or photography drive me nuts... 😣

PS. My mother was right, "Don't believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see".....
 
On my desktop I turned off the Bing wallpapers. They started having AI generated pictures. They look so stupid and phony. They had a picture of a male lion, that looked like something from The Lion King. The next day, they had a AI image of an otter. That was it. Now I find my own wallpaper.
 
What is the dead internet theory?
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"The dead Internet theory is a conspiracy theory that asserts, due to a coordinated and intentional effort, the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content manipulated by algorithmic curation to control the population and minimize organic human activity."
More here-> Dead Internet theory - Wikipedia

About AI altered images: They are misrepresenting and ruining existing images, but the younger set won't know that graphical depictions of the Past are inaccurate and...fake.
 
After I once look up something the pages get clogged with ai generated adds about the stuff I looked up.
I mostly shut off Ai, Copilot and 365. Many times, the circle just started and just keeps spinning.
 
Is advertising a function of the dead internet, and what would it's purpose be? I mean what could you sell to an AI bot?
 
The rapid rise of AI has polluted the internet with so much useless slop that it's already kneecapping the development of future AI models. Apparently AI that is trained on AI generated data gets exponentially worse with each iteration. It's like the old game of telephone. You tell something to the first person in line and then they turn and tell the next person. By the end of the line it barely resembles what was initially said. So internet data that was created before 2023 (when chatGPT was released) is considered AI training gold and everything after that is considered poison. They shot themselves in the foot big time.
 
Dead or alive the Internet is a deceptive place.
I don't know who coined the phrase: "Welcome to the Internet where men are men and women are men and children are FBI agents catching pedophiles."
 
spectratg said:
If you search “shrimp Jesus” on Facebook, you might encounter dozens of images of artificial intelligence (AI) generated crustaceans meshed in various forms with a stereotypical image of Jesus Christ. Some of these hyper-realistic images have garnered more than 20,000 likes and comments. So what exactly is going on here? The “dead internet theory” has an explanation: AI and bot-generated content has surpassed the human-generated internet.

The dead internet theory essentially claims that activity and content on the internet, including social media accounts, are predominantly being created and automated by artificial intelligence agents. These agents can rapidly create posts alongside AI-generated images designed to farm engagement (clicks, likes, comments) on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. As for shrimp Jesus, it appears AI has learned it’s the current, latest mix of absurdity and religious iconography to go viral.

But the dead internet theory goes even further. Many of the accounts that engage with such content also appear to be managed by artificial intelligence agents. This creates a vicious cycle of artificial engagement, one that has no clear agenda and no longer involves humans at all. The theory posits that bots and AI agents are responsible for creating much of the content online, such as social media posts, comments, and even images.
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I wrote about this some time ago. I also linked to a site where you can track the source of what you're reading (I don't have it to hand right now).

Social Media is so easily manipulated, that many now believe in fake/false "facts". In effect, living in a fantasy.
 
So many sites or sources on the internet censor nearly everything so badly that you can’t make a comment even when it is so obviously true.
And yet they pour false propaganda out constantly.
Take for instance when the MSM and a lot of internet sites insisted that Joe Biden was sharp as a tack when he was mumbling along in a daze and that is was only one of the more obvious things that the machine was cranking out that would be denied if contradicted.
There really is no freedom of speech on sites like FB.
Call it AI if you want but it is simply what the people behind the machine are pouring forth.
 
I wasn't aware of the media saying Biden was as sharp as a tack. But I suppose it could be a matter of "Which media?"His inner circle tried to convince everyone that he was, but as far as I could tell, the media wasn't buying it. But I don't follow the extreme left, the extreme right, facebook, twitter, or google. I don't even consider the internet to be the media, but I suppose it is considered that by most people.
 
JustDave said:
I wasn't aware of the media saying Biden was as sharp as a tack. But I suppose it could be a matter of "Which media?"His inner circle tried to convince everyone that he was, but as far as I could tell, the media wasn't buying it. But I don't follow the extreme left, the extreme right, facebook, twitter, or google. I don't even consider the internet to be the media, but I suppose it is considered that by most people.
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Oh yeah! Repeatedly and Morning Joe even told us that if we disagreed that Biden was sharp as a tack and working circle around his young aides, we could go F ourselves. I am still amazed that those networks are still in business after all the false propaganda they spouted, knowing it was false. Now they want us to believe they were duped. Not buying it.
 
Deya said:
Oh yeah! Repeatedly and Morning Joe even told us that if we disagreed that Biden was sharp as a tack and working circle around his young aides, we could go F ourselves. I am still amazed that those networks are still in business after all the false propaganda they spouted, knowing it was false. Now they want us to believe they were duped. Not buying it.
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I don't have TV, so I couldn't watch him if I wanted. But from many years back, I remember him taking absurd positions. I've always wondered why whatever channel he was on carried him anymore. He must have been popular or something. So yeah, main stream media can be out to lunch sometimes.
 

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