Breathing New Life into the Dead Internet
A way forward in a bot-infested digital graveyard of stories
Welcome! This is Remain Human, a publication that explores history, culture, technology and story to gain insight on what it takes to remain human during times of rapid change. Today’s article focuses on the reality of the Dead Internet Theory and what we can do to create a human-centric internet.
Ghoul of the Server
We have surrendered the internet to the dead.
Bots run rampant in the comments. AI accounts are becoming more prevalent. AI generated photos, videos and voiceovers are becoming the go-to forms of content to display information and news.
"The Algorithm" determines what you see and what is worth your attention. When you try to engage with others you're met with silence or with bot-generated responses.
The early internet was vibrant, communal, interpersonal. You'd stumble upon a specialized forum or creative storytelling through video on YouTube before Google bought it. There was very little automation. Hyperlinks connected singular webpages together in a loose, but intimate "web" of spaces.
Today, there are a handful of websites that aggregate a majority of the world's content, promoting discoverability and accessibility. At first, these islands of engagement were places where anyone could post links to things they found across the web and share them with others. Then they morphed into places where content was created there and remained there.
The personal website died. Forums died. Social media was born from the carcasses of humble blogs and along with it rose the need for attention. Content became shorter and more palatable to the fleeting, dim eyes of a world caught in a whirlwind of technological progress.
There are ghouls in the vapor rising from the servers running data across the world, and they work in unison to usher in an Age of the Dead Internet.
The Mechanics of the "Dead" Internet
What started as a theory among those seeking nostalgia for the earlier days of the web and those who sought to blame the "death" of the internet on government institutions and powerful actors, The Dead Internet Theory has become more than just theory as AI and bots have become more mainstream in recent years.
Some still seek to blame the influx of bots and AI content on political entities or corporations who have it in their best interests to steer content in a particular direction. While some of this does happen, this isn't the reason why the Internet is dying. Instead, we can see the "dead internet" as a reflection of how we view the consumption, utilization and sharing of media. We have moved from sharing isolated hyperlinks, many which are now just 404s, to engaging with curated feeds by "The Platform". As a society, we do not care where the content comes from, so long as it is "For You". When we look up momentarily from our feast of "brain rot" material, we might notice a familiar source, a brand or news outlet we recognize and use as an haven for our fragile understanding of the world.
We no longer "surf the web", we "wade in the sludge". We digest easy, sensational, AI generated media at lightning speeds, but our awareness of the information and analysis is slow. We no longer travel far digital distances to take in strange, mysterious and unexpected electrical landscapes of interesting stories and information.
All around us is a graveyard of interest.
Remainware
Web 1.0 was a static, read-only internet with basic websites connected through the use of hyperlinks. Web 2.0 is an interactive and social internet, where a handful of large content platforms battle for dominance in engagement and information delivery. Web 3.0 is a decentralized and semantic internet where a combination of novel technologies like blockchain, AI, quantum computing, immersive interfaces, and interoperable protocols all come together to provide a more human-centric internet resistant to the security, safety, and exploitative issues of Web 2.0.
Somewhere between Web 2.0 and 3.0 emerged a new "ideological software" I playfully call remainware. I see it as an implementation of ideology that rages against bot proliferation and low quality AI drivel. It is a movement that looks to future-proof the internet and sees the web as the ultimate tool of humanity. Companies and individuals that see the value in the relationship between creators and consumers and creativity and community are responding to this new call to adventure. Remainware is built upon Web3 ideas, putting users in greater control over their creations, their experiences with media, and their relationships with others. This movement takes shape as a decentralized social software that seeks to preserve the integrity of storytelling, the authenticity of communication, and the mystery of humanity through emphasizing human connection.
I imagine the first, full version of this ideology will be realized when creators, curators, and consumers, what I call the Trinity of the Living Internet, become more in tune with generating stronger connections with each other both through digital spaces and real ones. I see a world where the web operates in the background as something that silently and seamlessly strings things together leaving us to explore meaningful in-person interactions. Our media and methods of communication become embedded in our local environments while remaining largely out of the way of truly meaningful, creative, expressive IRL experiences.
We can create a Digital Renaissance, where the strange, fun, engaging, and vibrant quality of the early web is revived through authentic, niche, creator-focused communities, and enhanced with the practices and methodologies of the new web, where innovations in verification, security, and immersive technologies allow for a more human-centric experience.
We need many things to go right:
- digital literacy surge
- localization of creation and celebration
- widespread adoption of new technologies
- bot and spam mitigation
- transparency of governance
- culture shift
- and much more...
If we can decrease the barrier to entry for creating online, engaging with supportive communities, and extending digital experiences to in-person, we can breathe new life into the Dead Internet.
The internet of tomorrow will remain human.