Here lies the internet, murdered by generative AI | Corruption everywhere, even in YouTube’s kids content::Corruption everywhere, even in YouTube’s kids content
tbf, kids content on youtube has been a shitshow for awhile. Here’s a short Folding Ideas piece on it, that’s equal parts surreal, sad and scary:
I’m always surprised when this seems to be news to people. Was the whole “elsagate” mess really that long ago?
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What do people mean when they say “the internet” in this context? The social internet of the 2000s?
I say this it feels unimaginative to me to say that the internet is dead. Social media? For the major platforms, sure. But the Fediverse feels alive and novel, and the Internet itself is certainly not going anywhere - could you imagine if email went away?
I don’t know, I am in large agreement that the internet has gotten worse, with that accelerating with generative AI. But I also feel like being driven away from Big Tech platforms has led me to learn more about how the Internet actually works and to discover topics and communities that I hadn’t before. Maybe the internet isn’t wholesale dead, just changing
I think we have to try harder to find good content these days. AI, whilst continuing this, did not start it. The masses becoming ‘online’ started this. More nonsense got posted because everybody thought that every one else should hear their voice, and what they had for breakfast, and how their little toe bends slightly differently to their fourth toe.
It’s just become over populated.
The fediverse feels quite nice to me because it isn’t so populated yet. People don’t seem to be screaming over eachother so much.
Believe it or not, this is what the internet felt like for the most part prior to 2005 or so. I just don’t think there are chat rooms anymore.
There are, but they’re hosted on Discord now. It’s pretty much entirely taken over that niche.
I miss IRC.
Corporate greed and clout chasing ruined the internet long before AI.
The AI panic is truly making idiots out of otherwise competent people and it’s so sad to see. Everyone acts like there wasn’t malicious spam, bots, and constant garbage being funneled onto the internet before. The demonizing of new technology is getting really fucking old.
I think the difference is that generative AI is allowing the spammy bullshit to outpace the anti-bullshit measures faster than before. I don’t think it’s demonization to point out that it’s a problem.
Like any filters for spammy bullshit, they just need to be improved. That’s the cycle for any new development of technology. We didn’t know how to discern the difference between photoshopped images and real ones, then people smarter than most found it leaves artifacts in the images that can be detected.
The same will happen to AI where real and generated will be fenced off from each other. Is it bad literally right now as it’s developing? Yes, of course. The anti-measures will come soon. AI is a tool that has the propensity for being misused like anything else and the reactionary take that it’s “going to kill everything we love” is just frustratingly stupid.
Yeah, the difference is it’s expanding exponentially, and will continue to do so.
The real thing that ruined the internet, though, is the walled garden approach. The monetization. They took what was wild and free, creative and equal, and turned into something…gross. Generative AI is just the next step of that. It’s the continuation of a trend. And the acceleration of it. That’s a problem, even if the scaremongering around AI may be a bit overblown.
And while that also may be the case, it also might—this time—not be unfounded. Capitalism has strengthened its stranglehold on everything. Every new leap in tech has worked us harder, increasing profits, while we increase productivity. And that increase in profits, led to richer guys, which means they’re more powerful, and their grip gets tighter. It’s not just the tech that’s happening in a vacuum. At what point is the stranglehold too tight, the demand of people to produce too great, the power and control of business too great? Why not now. Because it’s already unwieldy and inhumane. Where once there were creative artists trying to get their work out there, we now have everyone flooding those spaces with AI generated bullshit.
Again, it’s not just the new tech. It’s this tech’s ability to make things worse than they’ve already been getting, to worsen the massive imbalance between a space for people and a space for business. It’s all business. And we’re now way in the margins. This will make that worse.
I keep hearing people repeat this idea that “they” destroyed the free internet. but isn’t the internet still free and wild? can’t I just create a website by myself and be as creative as I want just like the olden days?
to me, the biggest shift has been in the people, who let themselves simmer in the capitalist pan frog-style as companies took over. we stopped looking at the internet as a place to roam and explore and now expect content to be spoon-fed to us like we didn’t have a choice… we just turned from brave explorers into lazy customers (and products) by our own will (though whether free will even exists is a whole other conversation hehe)
another interesting aspect here is the capitalist mindset that things are not worth if they aren’t productive. in the internet this translates as reach and engagement. there have been absurdly long debates here about the “success” of lemmy/fediverse based solely on quantitative metrics. there’s still internet beyond big techs and content aggregators but we simply don’t think of them as relevant
I think the brave explorers are still here, they’re now just vastly outnumbered. The early Internet was full of those explorer types because they in particular tended to have enough interest to overcome the hurdles of getting on the Internet: namely computers being expensive and somewhat difficult to use. The early Internet was more accessible to intelligent, innovative users, and it reflected its user base. Many got online to explore and continued to explore and innovate once there.
Now millions have a user-friendly computer in their pocket, so practically anyone, even flat earthers, is capable and intelligent enough to use the Internet. Most are attracted not by exploration but by access to specific services that have been advertised to them, especially social media. The Internet continues to reflect its user base, but the user base’s composition has… changed. Let’s just call it changed.
The problem is not the machine generation technologies. The problem is advertisers - unless you kick advertisers out of an environment, they’ll either ruin it themselves, or encourage other people to do so.
Greed of corporations
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