AI generated content, which now includes incredibly convincing videos of people, will grow exponentially over the next weeks, months, and years.
At some point, the majority of the content you see will be fake, and any usefulness or connection to humans will be lost.
Even information that you might have previously been able to confirm from a trusted source can (and will) be manipulated in some way, making verification impossible.
This lack of verification, along with the speed at which fake content can now be generated, will make it impossible to defend against.
Even the world of art and communication has been tainted, serving no connection to real people through this digital hellscape.
To that end, when will the internet be so untrustworthy, “soulless”, and useless to you that it crosses the tipping point?
EDIT: Ok, holy fuck. There’s actually a term for what I’m describing: “The Dead Internet Theory”
I think this is a very doom and gloom way of thinking about it. If a particular place becomes too shit then I’ll quit going to that place. But quit the internet altogether? Doubtful. People are already putting ai free disclaimers on their sites and i expect that to continue. Perhaps there will even be a network of verified ai free sites.
Will things continue to get bad? Sure. But the fact that you are even asking this suggests that there are other people out there that want to see things differently.
I’ve been pretty reserved on my opinion about AI ruining the internet until a few days ago.
We’re now seeing videos with spoken dialogue that looks incredibly convincing. No more “uncanny valley” to act as a mental safeguard.
We can only whitelist websites and services for so long before greed consumes them all.
I mean, shit, you might already have friends or family using AI generated replies in their text messages and email… not even our real connections are “real”.