this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
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297
Bots Now Outnumber Humans Online And The Internet Was Never Built For This (www.forbes.com)
submitted 1 day ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub 9 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Bollocks, respectfully, bollocks.

Internet from the very conception was built around automation and bots. What wasn't built around bots is advertising. Quoting this article:

The internet was architected around [...] entire world of digital advertising

It only causes problems for big advertisers. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc. because if there is one thing advertisers hate more than adBlock is the idea that their clients will stop believing that ads are shown to real humans. Push for digital-ID is not to protect children, it is just another push to convince dumb shareholders that advertising online is still perfectly viable.

[–] HereIAm@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

The internet wasn't built for bots though? It was a way to connect universities to make it easier to share research and information and make it robust enough that it could function if some nodes were lost. Never have a heard automation was a foundational part of it.

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 8 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I thought this already happened in 2024 or 2025, there is report here: https://www.imperva.com/resources/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/reports/2025-Bad-Bot-Report.pdf

Also, are we counting number of users, like a human vs a machine doing http calls? I believe we are right?

Because there is the other metric: traffic. Traffic the interenet was also not built for, Video streaming. Which accounts for somewhere between 65 to 80 percent of all internet traffic depending on who you ask. Which makes me wonder how much data is just moving around that humans requested once (or not at all, like auto play) plus cloud server syncing - one drive, google drive, back end data, usenet, torrents, etc.

Seems like the machines have taken over the internet that used to be our mail and chats. And usenet. Sweet usenet.

[–] Mubelotix@jlai.lu 1 points 8 hours ago

To be honest it was always the case, because the internet was built for this

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 18 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I would take it a step further and say internet was never built for corporations. It was always intended to be a place where scientists share research, talk about star trek, and do drugs.

[–] Bipauler@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

So wait the scientists would be doing drugs and talking about Star Trek while sharing research?

We really did fuck up the timeline, didn't we?

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

FACEBOOK largely is mostly AI for a while, they banned/ required too many of actual users to give more personal data. REDDIT is very close second to facebook. bots on yt is a little unusual, its mostly revolves around anti-woke mysgoyny, or trying to act/claim like the actual celebritiy account.

[–] green_goglin@thelemmy.club 3 points 11 hours ago

Obligatory clanker hate speech comment

[–] mrodri89@lemmy.zip 16 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Imagine it. A million robots ragebaiting, trolling, misinforming humans and other robots alike. A constant hum of PC components just out there spewing shit.

[–] PhoenixDog@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I can't wait for the bot bubble to burst when these mega corporations end up spending more money on bots and losing revenue trying to pander to a non existent consumer base.

[–] bourrelier@jlai.lu 3 points 12 hours ago

ID verification is a way to prevent this. I guess that partially is why corporations are pusssing it.

[–] joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone 86 points 23 hours ago (4 children)

Kind of like how our highways weren't meant for hundreds of thousands of semi trailers on them every day, but we just keep jamming more fucking trucks on the road.

[–] binux@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 hours ago

Tragedy of the commons.

[–] NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I think it’s a disturbing function of human group behavior. One human can be smart. Humans en masse seem to groupthink ourselves into self-affirming decisions

We thought the fauna of the plains of Africa were so plentiful they could never go extinct, until we drove a number of them to extinction

We thought the ocean was so vast that the solution to pollution was dilution, until we created garbage islands and watched corals die off

We thought we were too small to affect the global climate, until we started watching anthropogenic climate change.

We just never fucking learn.

[–] joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 hours ago

Yeah I'm not sure exactly what the solution is since it's obviously a problem that has plagued mankind since the beginning. We'll figure it out some day, or not.

[–] areakode@riskeratspizza.com 37 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

Safety laws are written in blood. Because it's unprofitable to prevent disasters before they happen...

[–] argarath@lemmy.world 13 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

But look at them over regulate and red-tape anything that could possibly maybe harm their profits by actually innovating and improving quality... Working in biotech and knowing we could fix a lot of the issues with world hunger and vaccines by using tech we already know is safe but is barred from use because established companies would not profit as much is infuriating...

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 hours ago

Can you provide an example, please.

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[–] ramble81@lemmy.zip 10 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

Funny, I’d rather have more trailers and leave the roads to them and make sure people have good transport like subways, rails, etc. you’re always going to have a last-mile issue you can’t solve with mass transit so that works better for me.

[–] LemmyEntertainYou@piefed.social 1 points 9 hours ago

Exactly! The trucks aren't the issue with the roads, it's the amount of cars due to overpriced and underperforming public transport.

[–] Equinox1289@sh.itjust.works 21 points 20 hours ago (8 children)

I'd rather all the cargo moved by rail. Trains can be automated way better than a truck and the efficiency is enormous for longhaul.

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[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 16 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

The World Wide Web was never built for this, the Internet is just the physical network that connects it and everything else that’s online.

[–] pneumatron@sh.itjust.works 11 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

Good sir! Per chance do you Arch btw?

[–] Insekticus@aussie.zone 4 points 13 hours ago

Still can't find this mystical BTW version of Arch

[–] terranoid@lemmy.cafe 2 points 14 hours ago

pacman -Sy greypoupon

[–] Joeffect@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

I use regular arch

[–] Redditisbollocks@feddit.uk 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

You didn't say "Um, Actually"

[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 43 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

This is, consequently, also why all these AI companies are talking about selling computers to agents now. Its obvious the math doesn't work when an agent costs more than a person does.

... but if agents were selling agents to agents while agenting... the math works similarly to company n increasing its market cap exponentially by "investing" in another company... o which promises really hard to invest that back in company n....

Look: its totally logical and all of this makes perfect sense. 🫧

[–] argarath@lemmy.world 12 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

This is such a dumb reference, but I cannot believe MumboJumbo's current "mini"game project kind of perfectly predicted this... Bots trading to bots who are trading to bots all to boost the economy while the people are either starving to death within the system they robbed from us or living in the fringes and scrapping by

[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 10 points 21 hours ago

Theres a certain amount of inevitability in this... If its expected every single quarter you somehow produce better numbers than your last numbers... you are incentivised to make the sand castle taller by digging around its foundation spill more on the top. This applies to not only individual companies but the market at large - its practically fractal in nature.

Most of the market by now is aware AI and its promises are bullshit. Its just about passing that hot potato nuke around until it explodes. Nobody is worried about each pass making it a bigger bomb... they're worried about not being the guy holding it when it blows.

[–] gnawmon@ttrpg.network 16 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

add rogue AIs, datakrash from cyberpunk and we're golden!

seriously though, i want a seperate internet with strict no AI policy, maybe even a wall called Blackwall....

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 13 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Dead internet theory goes

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

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[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 16 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

The filthy rich destroy everything they touch.

[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago

Its a shame people haven't realized how few of them there are and how much better things would be if they... just ... you know. Weren't.

Meanwhile they are building bunkers and installing more surveillance we are paying for. The mind boggles at the trajectory we are on.

[–] Tetsuo@jlai.lu 9 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I suppose once the pillaging of everything they can train on is over, it will calm down a bit. But maybe I'm naïve on that front...

[–] DrakeAlbrecht@lemmy.world 19 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

AI is already training on slop, because it can't tell its own excrement from actual human creativity.

[–] Tetsuo@jlai.lu 6 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Isn't AI training on itself a well known thing to avoid ? If I remember correctly the "" performance "" goes to shit very quickly when you train a model on it's own output.

I doubt serious AI actors will make that mistake.

But on its own, the way they just opened their torrent client and started downloading made me furious.

In France you can still get caught downloading illegally and it can have serious consequences. But for AI businesses, copyright holders seem to look the other way. Businesses have extra rights to citizens and it's completely unfair.

[–] DrakeAlbrecht@lemmy.world 6 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

AI developers might be smart enough to filter their own output, but AI training is still taking in output from their competitors' models, usually without realizing it.

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[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 7 points 22 hours ago

In ten years English will be so sycophantic that conversations will span days.

It'll be like the Ents gathering.

[–] IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet@reddthat.com 6 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

Human society is clearly being led down a preconceived path created by those that believe their perception of what life is is "correct".

The data centers being built aren't for you to use chatgpt. It's like it will be the final step to truly turn humans that participate in this lifestyle from 'free' into a product, trained, built and traded. Our lives surveilled and data mined to create pin point precise psychological marketing manipulation campaigns specifically tailored to us individually in order to lead our lives down a path that is not ours and not our natural destiny. It's not new, humanity is already so far gone. Detox from "lifestyles" until you know the raw essence of your humanity, and then live for that.

I've posted it before but this quote fits so well.

"...It's a vast subject, a dense subject. I can't possibly do justice to it in the time allowed. This means I'm going to have to insult your intelligence by skimming across the top of subjects that you could get a PhD dissertation written in and still not cover thoroughly. This massive documentation of course is the salvation of the intellectually attuned. I urge you to read for yourselves. Do not take anything I'm saying tonight as the gospel. I'm telling you that our leaders lie to us. They lie to us systematically. They lie to us with a purpose that may not be your purpose. Some of their lies, if you're a young man may motivate you, uh, to go off someday and die, be killed or to kill people." - https://youtu.be/xKJ6NPEDuZA

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