The boss of ChatGPT has said that ‘dead internet theory’ might actually be happening.
The conspiracy theory centers around the idea that in the last decade, the internet has mainly comprised of bot activity.
It is thought that this automatically generated content is purposely used in a coordinated and intentional way to try to control the population and minimize organic human activity.
Believers of the theory say that the internet is no longer dominated by genuine human interaction and instead is filled with content that is generated by artificial intelligence.
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It’s thought that AI is making fake social media accounts in order to manipulate the trends on certain platforms, which some people believe is in order to facilitate a rise in misinformation.
Now, Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, has weighed in on the matter.
Taking to Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, he wrote: “I never took the dead internet theory that seriously but it seems like there are really a lot of LLM-run twitter accounts now.”
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This has sparked a response from people in the comment section, with one user writing: “Many such cases. Especially on X when most people are anonymous. Being a real person, with real thoughts, who makes mistakes publicly, and wrestles with difficult topics publicly is actually a very very positive thing. Some of my favorite people on here are those people.”
Another said: “Why is it surprising? If everything should be done by robots instead of people, why shouldn’t X posts be written by LLMs?”
A third person commented: “You are the single most responsible person for it?? Do something about it??”
And a fourth added: “I've noticed more and more in my replies. And not just from fake accounts run by groups and countries that want to influence public opinion. There also seem to be a lot of individual would-be influencers using AI-generated replies.”
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In other news, Altman appeared to slam Musk recently in a recent interview.
In the chat, the interviewer asked Altman: “What is an example of a decision you’ve had to make that is best for the world but not best for winning?”
In response, Altman said: “We haven’t put a sexpot avatar in ChatGPT yet.”
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Since the interview, many people have taken to social media to speculate as to whether this could have been a dig at OpenAI’s rival xAI, which is a firm run by Musk.
In particular, xAI’s new AI companion, known as Ani, which appears as an anime-style girlfriend dressed in a black corset dress.
Ani is only available for premium SuperGrok subscribers and has been said to cost around $300 to access.
Controversially, Ani has a NSFW mode which enables her to change into lingerie.
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This has sparked public concern about the ethics of having a sexual AI bot, with discussions being raised around child safety and the boundaries around relationships between humans and AI.