Have you heard of the Dead Internet Theory?

This is something that can drift into conspiracy land with some believing it was launched about 8 years ago to manipulate humanity. Stopping short of that, the main premise is the majority of the traffic on the Internet will ultimately be taken over by computers.

Leaving the origins aside from the tinfoil hat people, we can see how this is happening. For many, this is viewed as a negative.

In this article, we will dig into what we are dealing with and how to prepare for the major change.

The Dead Internet Theory Is Coming True And Why It Is A Good Thing

To get a big clearer definition of the Dead Interent Theory, we get this from a Forbes article:

The Dead Internet Theory is the belief that the vast majority of internet traffic, posts and users have been replaced by bots and AI-generated content, and that people no longer shape the direction of the internet.

It is easy to see how many could buy into the paranoia regarding this. Naturally, if things are moving in this direction, there has to be a cabal behind it, pulling the strings on humanity.

Here is where we will diverge from that viewpoint to simply look at what is happening.

What we are dealing with is simply a transformation of technology. This is no different that what took place in the past. In fact, we can see a similar thing happening as we expand into other areas of automation.

For example, there was a time when the routing of every telephone call was done by humans.

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We can say the communications world was altered completely when swithces replaced these people. Does anyone really care that phone calls are no longer routed by humans?

Another area we see this is in the stock market.

Today, over 80% of the traded initiated are instigated by computers. In addition, 100% of the trades are actually processed (i.e.routed) by computers. Do we discuss the idea of the "dead stock market"? Actually, due to all the activity, more people are involved than ever before.

Most of us have seen car factories. Here is a picture of a modern day plant.

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Notice what is missing. People.

Of course, many reading this are old enough to remember when automotive manufacturing was done mostly by humans. While people might hold those times with high regard, they overlook the products. Defects were commonplace. It was rare when one would get a new vehicle that did not have to get something fixed at the dealership due to workmanship. It was not always something major but it was an annoyance.

The Internet As Infrastructure

Across the globe, highways are filled with a couple billion vehicles driven by humans. In the United States, the interstate highway system was built starting in the 1950s. Since that time, billions of miles were traveled, generating hundreds of trillions in economic activity.

If we time travel ahead 20-25 years, do you think that will be the case? It is likely we are looking at the majority of human driving miles mostly elminated by then. Transportation that is controlled by humans will be akin to riding a horse to get from A to B.

The Internet is going to be automated. We already see the number of transactions handled by computers on the rise. However, this is also something that is not uncommon.

Let us look at calculations. Each day, we come across and use numbers. Stock volumes, likes on social media, tax on a purchase, and sports stats are regularly viewed. Does anyone object they are not generated by humans? For the past 50 years, computers steadily increased the percentage of calculations that are done.

The Internet is a collection of nodes that allow for the sending and receiving of information. This means it is infrastructure for data. Naturally, this can come housed in many different forms.

Human Generated Content Exploding

Most are aware the amount of data that is being generated each year is exploding. Here is a chart that shows what took place along with some projectioins.

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In addition to the numbers getting larger, the yearly amount of data generating is increasing. Absent the COVID year, which saw a massive jump, we see steady increases as compared to the difference the year before.

Is a lot of this due to automation? Without a doubt. However, why do we see that? The fact is a lot of things are becoming automated. For example, do you pay all of your bills manually or is there some type of automated billion you utilize. In many of these instances, the medium of communication is the Internet.

That said, people are also doing a lot more online. Do you use social media, especially messenging applications? Look up the numbers and see the explosive growth. Also, consider the "new media" idea that is taking off. Traditional broadcast is losing eyeballs to Internet media sources, most of that content that was created by individuals.

Substack saw an increase of 34.8 million vists in August 2023 to near 50 million last month, For YouTube, we see, as of January 2024, there are around 62 million YouTube creators.

Is the percentage of computer generated traffic on the Internet increasing? Most certainly. It was reported a few years ago that crossed the 50% level. It is a number that is likely higher today.

That does not mean, however, that the Internet is dying. As a medium, it is not going to be for humans, the same way that roads will transition to automated vehicles at some point. We see this throughout history. When was the last time you stepped into an elevator and a human was operating it?

Ultimately, much of what you see will be determined by your AI agent (personal assistant). This is something that will be fed all your data, i.e. trained by you. From this, it will pull the information you deem desireable or important.

The next decade will see the unfolding of millions of networks. That is the future of online abundance. As this evolves, we will see many different areas of focus. The idea of centralized power is diminishing simply due to the ease in creation. As developers gain access to even more open source software, this will only accelerate.

So while more of your online activity will be handled by a computer, you will be the one building that agent(s).