Mario Sixtus (2025). "KI: Der Tod des Internet [AI: Death of the Internet?]", DW Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/embed/8qVbE9DHkEk
Concept: "The Dead Internet Theory (DIT) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory originated more than 10 years ago in response to changes in the internet, especially the arrival of social networks, though at that time it had a conspiratorial tone. Currently, the arrival of artificial intelligence (AI) has rebooted the theory, driven by the use of bots to generate content and the obsession with 'likes.' Now, platforms prioritize participation and income metrics over authenticity, and they privilege monetization. This affects the authenticity of connections for which networks originally existed" (Guerra, M., 2026, August 11). Point: "These are prime examples of what is now known as slop: a term of art, akin to spam, for low-rent, scammy garbage generated by artificial intelligence and increasingly prevalent across the internet — and beyond. From their weird narrative instincts and inert prose, Clarke realized the stories came straight from ChatGPT. Sometimes they would arrive with the original prompt included, which was often as simple as 'Write a 1,000-word science-fiction story.' ... In the nearly two years since, a rising tide of slop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_slop has begun to swamp most of what we think of as the internet, overrunning the biggest platforms with cheap fakes and drivel, seeming to crowd out human creativity and intentionality with weird AI crap. On Facebook, enigmatic pages post disturbing images of maimed children and alien Jesuses; on Twitter, bots cluster by the thousands, chipperly and supportively tweeting incoherent banalities at one another; on Spotify, networks of eerily similar and wholly imaginary country and electronic artists glut playlists with bizarre and lifeless songs; on Kindle, shoddy books with stilted, error-ridden titles (The Spellbound Quest: Students Perilous Journey to Correct Their Mistake) are advertised on idle lock screens with blandly uncanny illustrations" (Read, M., 2024, September 25). Transcript: "It's very difficult to get in touch with people who are actually running these pages producing shrimp Jesus and whatever other crazy things you can imagine. And finally, I found a WhatsApp number attached to one of these pages. And I texted this guy who popped up and introduced himself to me as a guy named Steven Mwangi, who I believe lives in Kenya. He told me some of his biggest topics are religion, and specifically Christianity, animals – people love animals – and Manchester United, the English soccer club. So, he tries to create images around these that are high engagement. People will want to click on them, share them, comment on them, and he shares them to the pages. And when they go viral, he actually is able to get a small payout from Facebook. So, to me, this was a real eureka moment when I was researching this. It became clear that Facebook was subsidizing the slop itself. It was not just a willing participant. It was an aggressive participant in turning its whole platform into wall to wall Shrimp Jesus, basically. But this phenomenon is not limited to Shrimp Jesus or Facebook. Social networks are bursting with grotesque AI generated deepfakes intended to move, frighten or enrage us. They appeal to our empathy, envy, greed, hatred or fear– wanting us to 'click and share.'" https://www.youtube.com/embed/8qVbE9DHkEk?start=189&end=283 Transcript: "Dubious online coaches are fueling the AI craze in Germany as well. They claim to know top secret hacks to create automated AI videos. They say this content can guarantee 'passive income' https://www.reddit.com/r/passive_income/comments/1thv6m5/ai_slop_is_actually_making_money_and_i_did_some/ – the new buzzword for what was once called 'making money while you sleep'." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVbE9DHkEk&t=314s Issue: North Carolina Musician Charged with Music Streaming Fraud Aided by Artificial Intelligence (4 September 2024). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVbE9DHkEk&t=1302s Concept: John Perry Barlow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Perry_Barlow https://newpractices.co.uk/cyberculture/#dacKWLGZklM:BIO1 Concept: 'Enshittification' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://newpractices.co.uk/cyberculture/#3uLpICsNTV4 Concept: early natural language processing computer programme known as 'ELIZA' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA Transcript: "AI chatbots are essentially fraudsters claiming to be experts on something they know nothing about. And the human mind facilitates the lie, because as soon as something can speak, we assume it has a certain level of intelligence." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVbE9DHkEk&t=2272s Transcript: "I keep thinking about this thing that this one AI company executive said. He said, 'The problem right now is that we don't have enough AI shaped holes to fill.' And to me, that's so revealing, because it's like looking at the world and trying to find problems that fit your solution. And I think that really perfectly summarizes what we're seeing with AI, which is that no one has figured out the business model for this big AI thing. And so, what are the big tech companies doing? They're pushing it down our throats." https://youtu.be/8qVbE9DHkEk?si=_wSwJpfABQUJzqXq&t=2431 Transcript: "For any AI project that you see that's a success, there are people sitting behind the machine working on it. And even the simple decency of mentioning that somebody somewhere did it" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVbE9DHkEk&t=2585s Also, see this: Nermeen Shaikh (27 August 2026). "Data workers: 'today's factory workers' exploited & traumatized in the pursuit of autonomous tech", Democracy Now! https://newpractices.co.uk/AI/#o1iLPxwgV4E Concept: the 'stochastic parrots' hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_parrot https://www.transformernews.ai/p/the-left-is-missing-out-on-ai-sanders-doctorow-bender-bores More: https://newpractices.co.uk/AIslop/ Bio: Amba Kak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amba_Kak Cory Doctorow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow https://newpractices.co.uk/GenerativeAI/#T1KIwaYRs1g Evan Ratliff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Ratliff Melanie Mitchell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Mitchell Emanuel Maiberg https://www.linkedin.com/in/emanuel-maiberg-0b777a25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/404_Media https://www.404media.co/author/emanuel-maiberg/ Mats Schönauer https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8794835/ Max Read https://muckrack.com/max_read/articles Milagros Miceli https://dair-institute.org/team/milagros-miceli/ Joan Kinyua https://ke.linkedin.com/in/joan-kinyua-4b063052 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DcgsUuSq3Qs https://datalabelers.org/the-team.html Film: GDELT TV Visual Explorer https://api.gdeltproject.org/api/v2/tvv/tvv?id=DW_20260520_140300_AI Bibliography: Welle, D. (2026, May 6). "AI - death of the internet?" https://www.dw.com/en/ai-death-of-the-internet/a-76641488 Guerra, M. (2026, August 11). 'The dead internet theory'. Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education. https://observatory.tec.mx/edu-news/the-dead-internet-theory/ Read, M. (2024, September 25). "Drowning in Slop A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with Al garbage - and it's only going to get worse". New York Magazine. Intelligencer. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-generated-content-internet-online-slop-spam.html https://archive.ph/VsC2R Renzella, J., & Rozova, V. (2024, May 21). "Is The 'Dead Internet Theory' True? Shrimp Jesus Phenomenon Explained". Science Alert. https://www.sciencealert.com/is-the-dead-internet-theory-true-shrimp-jesus-phenomenon-explained North Carolina Musician Charged with Music Streaming Fraud Aided by Artificial Intelligence (4 September 2024). https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician-charged-music-streaming-fraud-aided-artificial-intelligence Maxwell, T. (2024, November). AI slop website sent thousands of people to a halloween parade that didn't exist. Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/ai-slop-website-sent-thousands-of-people-to-a-halloween-parade-that-didnt-exist-2000519496
