Thought of the week: The internet is dead. Long live AI?

I’ve written extensively about Dead Internet Theory — the idea that the internet is slowly being overrun by AI-generated content, to the point where human-authored work becomes a rarity. This theory, which gained traction a few decades ago as companies engaged in an SEO arms race to outrank each other on Google, is even more relevant today given the ease with which tools like ChatGPT can churn out content. So much so that predictions that the majority of online content will be AI-generated by 2025 now seem like a massive understatement.

This makes finding nuggets of great content amid the detritus of shallow, SEO-driven, sponsored material increasingly tedious. Nor can we assume that AI search agents will come to the rescue. Two of the biggest players in the race to dethrone Google, Perplexity and OpenAI’s upcoming SearchGPT, have both been clear that their AI-generated search results will be ad-supported. So we’ll be doubly screwed: crappy AI-generated answers and ads!

Ok, so you may think this doesn’t matter as soon we’ll all have personal AI agents who find things for us and obviate the need to search for stuff in the first place. I foresee six key trends that will shape our online experiences:

1. Machines as curators: Given all my personal data, it’s easy for an AI (and what or who controls it) to fully shape my opinions and perceptions of reality. Algorithms, such as the ones that have made Instagram, TikTok and Netflix so powerful, already create content based on what we watch, but soon they’ll dictate what we value, how we think and, possibly, who we become.
2. Fracture and retreat: This is already the case for many internet users on social media. A general withdrawal from the ‘vanilla’ internet – the stuff where most content is advertorial – to private, authentic and critically human online spaces; the online equivalent of gated communities.
3. A massive premium on well-written, human content: The content creation economy changes dramatically, as certain types of content are devalued while seeing an increased premium on demonstrably human-created content. A good example of this is the success of publishers like The New York Times. On its knees only a few years ago, the NYT now has more than 10.8 million subscribers and over $600 million in revenue.
4. The need to pass the AI sniff test: Whether you’re handing in your homework or posting pictures of your family holiday, all content will be assumed to be AI-generated until proven otherwise.
5. Offline is the new online: As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, we may see a shift in how we value and consume information, potentially leading to a renaissance of offline, in-person experiences and analogue content.
6. Global groupthink: The global soft power that the West has exerted over the rest of the world will be massively amplified as (poor) countries fail to create AI in their own image, and instead rent their ‘intelligence’ from Big Tech.

Workers of the world unite (for now)

As automation and artificial intelligence reshape industries, workers are increasingly uniting to resist the rising tide of job-killing automation. Following similar action by Hollywood writers in 2023, last week it was the turn of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) to strike and effectively shut down all East Coast U.S. ports. Their grievance? Automation. U.S. dockworkers are worried that robots are coming for their well-paid but highly labour-intensive work of unloading and transporting goods, a scenario they believe could see them suffer the same fate as Detroit autoworkers.

Dig a little deeper, however, and sympathy for the ‘plight’ of the 45,000 or so U.S. dockworkers starts to evaporate. Firstly, according to a 2019-20 annual report from the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, about one third of local longshoremen make $200,000 or more a year. The head of their union, Harold Daggett, drives a Bentley, owns a yacht and earns a staggering $728,000! Given that the strike is costing the economy an estimated $4.5 billion per day, the ILA literally have the U.S. economy over a barrel. So really, this strike is little more than a shakedown.

Ironically, these kinds of protests often end up accelerating automation as corporations reassess the inherent inefficiencies of keeping humans doing physically demanding, dangerous and often gruelling work. Moreover, because they are heavily and expensively unionised, U.S. ports are among the least automated in the world. While ports in countries such as Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands use advanced robotics and remote-controlled cranes to increase efficiency, American docks have fallen behind. In fact, none of the U.S. terminals ranked in the World Bank’s top 50 performing ports in 2023.

Despite Daggett’s efforts, the fight against automation is a losing battle. While ILA members have won a 61.5% raise over six years in a tentative agreement, the broader effort to halt technological advancements at U.S. ports is futile.

The ruthless job-killing efficiency of AI needs to be top of the government agenda before employment becomes a dystopian, automated wasteland.

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