'Dead Internet Theory' Comes To Life With New AI-Powered Social Media App 52
A conspiracy theory known as "Dead Internet Theory" has gained traction in recent years, positing that most online social activity is artificial and designed to manipulate users. This theory has grown alongside the rise of large language models like ChatGPT. On Monday, software developer Michael Sayman launched SocialAI, an app that seems to embody aspects of this theory. ArsTechnica: SocialAI's 28-year-old creator, Michael Sayman, previously served as a product lead at Google, and he also bounced between Facebook, Roblox, and Twitter over the years. In an announcement post on X, Sayman wrote about how he had dreamed of creating the service for years, but the tech was not yet ready. He sees it as a tool that can help lonely or rejected people.
"SocialAI is designed to help people feel heard, and to give them a space for reflection, support, and feedback that acts like a close-knit community," wrote Sayman. "It's a response to all those times I've felt isolated, or like I needed a sounding board but didn't have one. I know this app won't solve all of life's problems, but I hope it can be a small tool for others to reflect, to grow, and to feel seen." As The Verge reports in an excellent rundown of the example interactions, SocialAI lets users choose the types of AI followers they want, including categories like "supporters," "nerds," and "skeptics." These AI chatbots then respond to user posts with brief comments and reactions on almost any topic, including nonsensical "Lorem ipsum" text.
"SocialAI is designed to help people feel heard, and to give them a space for reflection, support, and feedback that acts like a close-knit community," wrote Sayman. "It's a response to all those times I've felt isolated, or like I needed a sounding board but didn't have one. I know this app won't solve all of life's problems, but I hope it can be a small tool for others to reflect, to grow, and to feel seen." As The Verge reports in an excellent rundown of the example interactions, SocialAI lets users choose the types of AI followers they want, including categories like "supporters," "nerds," and "skeptics." These AI chatbots then respond to user posts with brief comments and reactions on almost any topic, including nonsensical "Lorem ipsum" text.
Obviously not true (Score:4, Insightful)
most online social activity is artificial and designed to manipulate users
Nah... Most online social activity is mostly human-driven and designed to manipulate users.
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The tradition has been to take natural human-generated content, and then amplify the favored content either via owning the algorithm or abusing the algorithm (bot votes/retweets). Mostly profit-driven, ie "maximize engagement" for the website, buying fake followers for fun or profit, etc. On some sites the bots outnumber the humans, either in number or activity, but it has usually been quiet activity like profile, upvotes, reposting.
Needs Accessories (Score:2)
a couple of ferns, some cardboard cutouts of celebrities, even some pro-athelete sweat, to make it seem like you interact with "interesting people".
He seems like a deadbeat (Score:5, Insightful)
SocialAI's 28-year-old creator, Michael Sayman, previously served as a product lead at Google, and he also bounced between Facebook, Roblox, and Twitter over the years.
"Over the years"? The dude is 28. Either he hasn't studied much or he can't hold a job for very long. If I was him, I'd stop quoting my career "achievements" because they're not doing the work he things they do.
That and, ya know, a self-styled "creator" whose creator handle is SocialAI... Mmmmyeah... Next.
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Yep, pretty much. Just another asshole trying to profit from the AI hype.
Re: He seems like a deadbeat (Score:2)
Or maybe a hint of narcissism?
SocialAI is designed to help people feel heard ...
I hope it can be a small tool for others to reflect, to grow, and to feel seen
Not everybody wants to be seen or heard. Sure, if you've got some kind of legitimate (as opposed to contrived) public grievance, but outside of that, you're probably just looking for vanity if you just want to be seen and heard. And if it's because you're lonely, that might be because you're a narcissistic douchebag to those who would otherwise be your friends and give you that healthy personal connection people naturally need and want.
Narcissism, on the other hand, is a disord
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I also work with elderly folks sometimes because once a month I volunteer for the VOA delivering food. I mostly just handle times when there is overflow or someone else is sick, but I meet a lot of older folks and I'
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Nobody in my family's living history has held a job for life, but that was at least an attainable goal back in my grandfather's day. Today you have to move to avoid being pigeonholed and left with a stagnant career.
But yes, this guy should STFU. He sounds like a self-important and clueless fool.
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"Today you have to move to avoid being pigeonholed and left with a stagnant career."
Bullshit.
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Yes these days to preserve a career you probably have to be changing roles every five to seven years, and that may or may not include a change in organization. At least in the white collar world.
But if you are 28 - that means you have been working professionally for at most about 10 years, more likely something like 6. So when you list out three different companies - that means you were there for 2 years each at most. Again generous, assuming now gaps, last day at Google, next day at your first onboardin
Re:He seems like a deadbeat (Score:5, Informative)
He was hired as an intern at Facebook at 17 after building a phone app at 13 called "4 Snaps". At 21 he was a millionaire, left Facebook to work at Google as a product lead on Assistant products. So ~11 years in Silicon Valley (I guess) he probably has enough $$ and influence to start his own thing.
The byline doesn't tell the whole story. But this idea is terrible. If he burns through his own money trying to make it a billion-dollar idea, he'll regret it. Or he'll fail his way up like Sam Altman did. Probably the latter. I bet this idea tanks, but it puts him on the boards of like 10 other startups and he's a billionaire at 35.
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The idea sucks but will be bought up by venture capitalists looking to turn it into a dating app.
Dead Internet Theory is moot. (Score:3)
A shadowy figure in the mist... (Score:2)
Dr. Sbaitso, I presume?
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It was a thing back in the 19 hundreds. (~1991)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Hello [name], my name is Doctor Sbaitso.
I am here to help you.
Say whatever is in your mind freely,
our conversation will be kept in strict confidence.
Memory contents will be wiped off after you leave,
So, tell me about your problems.
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d'oh you got me. +1 woooosh
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+1 masterful reference
This is our glorious future. (Score:2)
People feel isolated, lonely, as if they have no one real to talk to? Hand them more tech, which is making them feel isolated, lonely, and as if they have no one real to talk to.
You know, with the way the world is, and how everybody seems to be so traumatized that they have a hair-trigger ready to go off if the wrong string of words hits their ears, I can see a day when human interaction is seen as completely backwards or perhaps even dangerous. Only The Bots will have your best interests at heart. Do not t
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Kind of a fucked up undercurrent eh? I agree that adding more tech is probably not going to fix the loneliness caused by tech in the first place. I see a lot of lonely people and I've been there myself. I also feel a lot of pity for folks who are isolated (like the VOA Meals on Wheels folks I deliver to for a volunteer gig). I also see that even kids are often pretty lonely, which surprises me. I coach some skating classes and some of the kids seem super starved for attention to the point it causes behavioral problems. I can tell their parents never listen to them and it seems like they may have few, if any, friends. I understand people can cop a nasty attitude about adults being responsible for their own isolation, but these kids? They don't deserve this. The main way to combat this is to get out into the real world, start some kind of social activity others can freely join, and try to help. If this guy's intentions are good, I wish him luck, but it all seems kinda suspect. Time will tell, I suppose.
It's just another, more directed way to monetize the isolation we often find ourselves in. As a GenXer, our parents pretty much never paid attention to us outside of specified family time, which was an hour or so a night at absolute most. But? We mostly ran around the neighborhood with the other kids during decent weather, so we weren't starved for attention. Seems like the onset of social media, on top of lots of kids being raised by parents that had no true parenting model to follow from their own youth,
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I Hate Everything About This (Score:2)
I hate everything about SocialAI based on that description. It doesn't help lonely or rejected people. Instead, it supplants healthy lifestyle changes with an AI that acts as an emotional crutch. If you want to feel seen and heard, then go build real relationships with real people.
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I wish I could believe that's the intent of SocialAI. But it seems like most people these days (I recognize I'm speaking anecdotally) don't want a dose of reality, to be told there's a better way or to make the changes necessary to fix their own problems. They just want to be coddled and reaffirmed.
Monetizing lonely idiots? (Score:2)
from Ars Article:
"SocialAI takes the social media "filter bubble" to an extreme with 100% fake interactions."
So losers can have pretend friends?
Wow. That's innovation for you.
OR is it? Facebook and Instagram have had that for years.
I was on Instagram before King Zuckerberg drowned it in a bathtub... after that it was full of advertising fraud and manipulating my user base... Once you have a few thousand subscribers, you'll never notice if they stick a new one in, or take an
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Dead internet theory? The internet is sewage and circling the drain now, it's really a good idea to just take up knitting or guitar instead of button pushing for titties.
This is Slashdot - there are no titties here.
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SuperKendall is all titties. Your point is well taken, though.
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Don't care about the supposed conspiracy theory (Score:2)
But this whole post just feels like an even-more-awkward-than-usual Slashvertisement.
I have a great new idea for an AI service (Score:5, Funny)
It's called "Smartdot". Instead of having to wade through tedious heaps of human-curated "news for nerds", we'll just use whatever the latest whatever is, and post article after generated article of nerd-adjacent news. Heck, we'll even throw in generated comments! Why not? Humans are obsolete, anyway.
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Humans are obsolete, anyway.
At least we will always have hot grits.
Conspiracy Theory? (Score:3)
Who is supposedly conspiring here? It's unclear.
Lots of old sites have gone 404 and social media is barely searchable while we have whole nonsense websites for SEO schemes.
Some of the claim would seem true.
But, man, if somebody is already addicted to a smartphone and they get an AI BFF, they are going to be totally locked in.
This will be quite bad.
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Who is supposedly conspiring here? It's unclear.
They [imdb.com] are.
An excellent documentary on this topic. I suggest everyone watch it.
Musk showed it isn't a theory.. (Score:2, Insightful)
..but actually the policy to keep us from becoming informed.
the assholes even tried to create a new kind of information 'malinformation' - for TRUE information that goes against the narrative.
I think we're in the throes of an information based revolution where the embedded elites have lost their fucking minds, and the rest of us who have perceived their lies are being suppressed in order to stop others from becoming informed.
Misinformation is THE information we're getting from what is a thoroughly corrupt a
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'malinformation' - for TRUE information that goes against the narrative.
That's the way true professionals lie, they say true things that are misleading. As an example, an article that goes on about how 3D printers allow the printing of a piece that can convert a semi-automatic into full auto, and there's efforts to ban them after a tragic incident featuring many deaths and a semi-auto gun modified to full auto. All true, and also misleading because the part in question is already illegal and was a metal part that wasn't 3D printed. Another example is Satan in the Bible, who nev
Google can't control what people say online (Score:2)
app (Score:1)
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Apps aren't meant to benefit you.
Define “social” for me, human. (Score:4, Insightful)
If a platform is basically boasting about how you’ll be interacting with a bot rather than a human, I’m really wondering how this generation is going to define what being “social” really means.
If we thought people’s handwriting got bad in the digital age, just wait until we see what happens to human conversation. Unfortunately I can see this becoming one hell of a personal echo chamber. Let’s you pick and choose your follower flavor? Bots logically calling you out in your bullshit? Just swap out those Skeptics with Supporters! Then you can bake up any delusion you want and have all your “friends” support you. Who needs to be told they’re wrong, amirite?
Great (Score:4)
Just what we need, more people walled off in their own little bubbles.
Ars Technica? (Score:2)
Great movie potential (Score:2)
Also called "heavenbanning" (Score:3)
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Of course, this assumes that one doesn't have multiple accounts accessed through VPNs and various other anonymizing services that can be used to read social media threads.
What's even more fun is to get into flame wars with myself.
Good lord... (Score:2)
Yes, clearly what lonely people need is to be handed the ability to avoid ever talking to another real human being. That's the ticket. That's how we'll fix the loneliness epidemic.
c.f. Don't Create The Torment Nexus, [antipope.org] holy shit man, Asimov's Solarians at the end of Foundation were a nightmare scenario, not something you'd ever WANT to have happen to your civilization.
What we need (Score:2)
is a non-monetized internet. The internet was a great place in it's first decades, now large portions of it only exist to suck money out of consumers Same thing with social media, it was good in the beginning but started to be awful once they started generating fake friend requests. Search sucks, google could care less about search results.
I'm fine with people making money off of what they do, when the thirst for money outweighs serving the interests of the companies customers, the company sucks. They stil