We're starting to see one prediction come true of how artificial intelligence will affect the internet: AI-generated spam is flooding the web.

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.

  • abhibeckert@lemmy.worldEnglish
    107·
    11 months ago

    The web was already flooded with human generated spam, adding AI spam to the mix hasn’t really changed anything meaningful - you still can’t find useful content on the vast majority of webpages.

    What we really need is a better search engine, one that doesn’t include low quality content… that might be something AI can help with.

    • evatronic@lemm.eeEnglish
      78·
      11 months ago

      That used to be Google, when they were interested in providing quality results and showing ads alongside those results, instead of just… being an ad company.

      Before that, it was Yahoo, when they were interested in providing quality results, and showing ads, instead of just being an ad company.

      Before that, it was AltaVista, when they were…

      …Ask Jeeves…

      We’ll see who’s next.

    • lorty@lemmy.mlEnglish
      41·
      11 months ago

      Yes, but the sheer volume of trash these AIs can generate will be an even bigger problem that needs addressing.

      • GreyBeardEnglish
        18·
        11 months ago

        Plausable sounding trash, specifically. More plausable than what extremely low paid humans can put out.

      • arin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        11 months ago

        Ugh i used stable diffusion for a few weeks and even with better prompt engineering it still felt like generative trash. Guess i wasn’t creative enough in prompting because I’ve seen some great stuff from others.

    • beardown@lemm.eeEnglish
      15·
      11 months ago

      The web was already flooded with human generated spam, adding AI spam to the mix hasn’t really changed anything meaningful - you still can’t find useful content on the vast majority of webpages.

      “The river was already flooded with human generated pollution, adding truckloads of nuclear waste to the mix hasn’t really changed anything meaningful - you still can’t go swimming or eat the fish in the majority of waterways.”

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
      13·
      11 months ago

      that might be something AI can help with.

      No it can’t.

      And also it’s already a solved problem. Once again - web rings, web directories, communities and acquaintances. The Web is not deus ex machina. It’s a system to be used to make your hands longer, your memory bigger, your eyes sharper etc.

    • matteagl3@lemy.lolEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      right - time to just focus on some news that have been vetted by some trustworthy organization. or a ministry - that focusses on truth or something.

    • wikibot@lemmy.worldBEnglish
      55·
      11 months ago

      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

        • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.netEnglish
          6·
          11 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.

      • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
        25·
        11 months ago

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

        I’m here for the human element.

  • JeffKerman1999@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    45·
    11 months ago

    “starting”? The net was ruined when yahoo directory failed and Google with their stupid algorithm and SEO and AdSense and monetisation came along

    • infeeeee@lemm.eeEnglish
      53·
      11 months ago

      Google had to happen, manually updating a registry of all site was unsustainable with the growth of the internet.

      And the concept of SEO is actually older than the internet, “AAA Plumbing” from yellow pages was also optimized for the algorithm of the the telephone registry, which was simply alphabetical order. Just different algorithm and different scale.

    • oDDmON@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      11 months ago

      Ppphhht.

      The internet ended the day AOL threw open its doors and allowed their users out of the walled garden.

      I know, I was there.

  • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    34·
    11 months ago

    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.

    • Diurnambule@jlai.luEnglish
      15·
      11 months ago

      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.

      • Liam Mayfair@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        5·
        11 months ago

        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.

    • M0oP0o@mander.xyzEnglish
      2·
      11 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.

    • inverted_deflector@startrek.websiteEnglish
      2·
      11 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.

  • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.eeEnglish
    32·
    11 months ago

    Lately I’ve been seeing more ai articles and videos on youtube. Sometimes, I look up tech issues and there’s a video, I check it out and some of these videos are just forum posts uploaded text on the screen. There are whole channels taking popular online forum posts and gathering views that way.

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
      English
      22·
      11 months ago

      Yes, so annoying. You read an article and later find the (steam) forum, reddit post or tweet that was turned into a whole article, just with more words.

      Don’t even get me started on having to watch a 10 minute video on YouTube that could have been a 3 sentence forum post.

      • GreatAlbatross@feddit.ukEnglish
        10·
        11 months ago

        Or something that could have been explained in 3 paragraphs becoming a 20 minute, overproduced video complete with someone making a stupid face in the thumbnail, and SOMETHING ALLCAPS in the title.

    • Nommer@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      7·
      11 months ago

      What’s really annoying is I’ll search for something in DDG, Google, bing, etc, like palworld for example, and I’ll see the top 10 results be different web pages with almost identical wording that don’t even answer my questions. I hate the Internet these days. SEO and advertising is cancer that kills off anything good.

  • xenoclast@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    11 months ago

    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.

  • Yewb@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    11 months ago

    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?

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.caEnglish
      23·
      11 months ago

      Bots and AI aren’t the same thing. Bots are just automations, not necessarily making use of machine learning.

      • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        11 months ago

        I saw someone unironically last month call Excel spreadsheet formulas “AI”.

        The term is rapidly approaching meaninglessness when used by anyone remotely non-technical. I’m probably going to miss an edge case here, but basically:

        Classic AI = mostly search algorithms (Dijkstra, A*, etc), simple neural nets (e.g. perceptron) and prolog (to trivialise logic languages)

        Modern AI = Machine Learning and the utilisation of those models trained by it. (Tensorflow, LLMs, etc)

        Everything else = not AI, just technology.

        • bionicjoey@lemmy.caEnglish
          9·
          11 months ago

          I would include “video game AI” since semantically it is pretty well-accepted, even though it’s not really AI. Things like goal-based behaviour as well as the pathfinding algos you mentioned.

          • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            11 months ago

            There’s the edge case haha, yeah I agree, game AI is a pretty accepted and understood concept

  • M0oP0o@mander.xyzEnglish
    13·
    11 months ago

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

    • Azal@pawb.socialEnglish
      8·
      11 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.

  • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3·
    11 months ago

    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).

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      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.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        11 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.