The Dead Internet theory vs survivorship bias
Some AI-written texts are absurdly easy to spot. Phrases like "X isn't just Y — it's Z", together with a few other tells, convince the sharper reader that this string of words did not come from fingers of flesh and bone on a keyboard.
That human ability to recognise the writing style of an advanced language system makes us doubt whether an LLM could really replace a copywriter. Language is far more than morphemes and phrases. It is subjective and strangely complex, because it is tied directly to feelings, sensations, uncertain memories and passions that a machine is still nowhere near simulating.
Or at least, that is what we think.
Some AI can already produce videos realistic enough to fool the vast majority of people online. It is not hard to imagine text reaching the same level. The author of this article, for instance, believes he will never manage to convince you, reader, that this text was written "the old-fashioned way". But he hopes you will trust him that it was. Because it was.
As if that were not enough, there is another fact to consider: what about the AI models that have not been released to the public yet?
Models can be trained and refined in secret by private organisations, or even governments. Plenty of technologies have, in fact, been developed that way. We are facing a technology that can manipulate reality with extremely well-made fake media, ever harder to tell apart from what is real.
Today you can already download an app to your phone that turns any photo into a video, tailored to whatever the user asks for. The result is not perfect, of course, but it is sometimes good enough to convince someone that it really happened. All of it for free.
In short, perhaps the Dead Internet is not something being born, but something that has already grown up, to the point where we can no longer tell what is alive from what is the product of cold calculations on a sliver of silicon.
Outside the Journal, my work is integration and automation between CRM, ERP and management platforms, for companies in Portugal and across the EU. See my previous work or get in touch.