An Amazon Web Services (AWS) study reveals that over 57% of sentences on the web have been translated into two or more languages with machine learning. Users in Africa and South Asia encounter content that has been poorly translated or distorted into a misleading click-bait. The motive? Advertising dollars.
The underlying problem is a combination of tech limits and global inequalities. In low-resource regions, where there is insufficient linguistic data available to train AI models, translations tend to be wildly inaccurate. As a result, reality is distorted for profit, with users left without recourse to redressal.
One disorienting theory in circulation is the idea of the ‘dead internet.’ Part conspiracy theory, part science fiction, this posits that most online interactions are no longer between human beings, but are dominated by AI bots. These bots are responsible for everything from fake social media profiles to orchestrated political narratives.
The theory also suggests that governments have leveraged this technology to create a vast mind-control mechanism, filtering what we see and shaping the public discourse to suit their needs. While this may be exaggerated, it does suggest a problem. The internet has become a battleground between tech companies and those looking to exploit their algorithms.
In 2013, YouTube employees found that this platform was being gamed by users artificially inflating likes and views. This manipulation risked what they called an “inversion,” the moment when algorithms mistake fake activity for real human interaction, skewing the system. A recent study found that nearly 60% of Instagram profiles in India had fake followers.
The illusion of engagement extends beyond social media likes and followers. In 2018, the US Justice Department unsealed indictments against a group that siphoned off $36 million in ad revenue by fooling advertisers into believing their ads were being seen by real people on legitimate sites.
Instead, the ads were displayed on fake websites, with fake clicks and fake user engagement generated by human impersonators, not unlike what some hotels and restaurants do to show higher ratings.
In 2016, Facebook faced a lawsuit for misreporting user engagement metrics, overstating how much time users were spending on it. Such obfuscation has led to a crisis of trust between advertisers and tech firms. The EU’s Digital Services Act mandates transparency tools for online ads.
But despite these efforts, tech giants seem to be making it harder for advertisers to know where their money is going or what impact their ads are truly having.
Many industry observers argue that the digital advertising ecosystem is close to a breaking point.
The market has reached what Paris Marx describes as an “irrational level of confidence,” a hallmark of bubbles throughout history. As the perceived value of digital advertising rises, its actual effectiveness may be falling. In 2018, the average click-through rate on Google’s display ads fell to just 0.46%, while ad fraud jumped to an estimated $42 billion.
Bots talking to bots. A degraded user experience. A growing lack of trust in internet offerings. Where is all this likely to lead?
One trend is the use of omni-channels, combining both the real and virtual worlds. In ad-supported search, we are seeing new competitors like Perplexity promising a better experience.
In general, subscriptions are becoming more common despite ‘free’ content. The New York Times now derives most of its revenue from paying readers rather than ad dollars.
We feel the internet may follow the path of essential services like electricity. Just as governments once nationalized utilities, the internet could become a regulated public good. A Consumer Reports study found that 80% of respondents view broadband as no less essential than water and electricity.
At the same time, peer-to-peer trust-based communities are growing in popularity. Reddit is an example, but other curated communities may soon become prime real estate for advertisers looking for authentic engagement with real people.
We may also see digital services taking on different structural forms, now that the seemingly endless spigot of growth-at-all-cost venture capital money seems to have eased off (for everything except AI). Imagine if ride-hailing cab drivers, for example, had shared ownership of the platform that generates their income.
We have already seen the power of well-designed ownership programmes. A prominent case study is that of Chi Overhead Doors, a novel approach pioneered very profitably by the investment group KKR.
It seems the days of an ad-supported free-for-all internet are numbered. The future may hold a mix of models: some paid, some regulated and others built around trust and community. What seems clear, however, is that the web as we know it is on the brink of a major transformation.
As the web teeters on the edge of a transformation, we’re left to ponder: Will it become a public utility, a gated community or a digital cocktail party where bots outnumber humans? Whatever the future holds, let’s hope we’re not just digital echoes, but real voices—with wi-fi connections that work!
The authors are, respectively, professor at Columbia Business School  and founder of Valize, and  co-founder of Medici Institute for Innovation.
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