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.world
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    10 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.ee
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      10 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.ml
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      10 months ago

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

      • GreyBeard@lemmy.one
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        10 months ago

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

      • arin@lemmy.world
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        10 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.ee
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      10 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.zip
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      10 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.

  • JeffKerman1999@sopuli.xyz
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    10 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.ee
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      10 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.world
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      10 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.works
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    10 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.

    • inverted_deflector@startrek.website
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      10 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.

    • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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      10 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.

  • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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    10 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
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      10 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.uk
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        10 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.works
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      10 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.world
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    10 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.world
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    10 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?

  • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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    10 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?

  • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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    10 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.com
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      10 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.zip
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        10 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.