Will AI Chatbots Really Kill the Internet

Recently, there were a lot of big news such as Microsoft's release of AI PC and AI Global Summit, but one news that seemed a little strange caught my attention. It was news that the AI-generated image of "Jesus the Shrimp" was spreading on the Internet.

In fact, this issue has appeared occasionally for a while, but has not been widely discussed as it is treated as a minor issue, such as Internet memes. This time, however, it is linked to the "dead internet."

The dead Internet literally refers to the Internet dominated by AI agents, and no one is alive. This is an example of AI bot distributing the image of the shrimp Jesus.

The dead Internet has already been mentioned as an important issue since the beginning of last year. It is speculated that if AI chatbots replace existing searches, the number of people who will come in via links such as existing Google searches will sharply decrease. It is argued that this reduces traffic on each website and causes operators to suffer greatly.

Some predicted that if an AI agent appeared, only AI would remain on the web. Agents are tools that help people search websites and make payments instead of people. In other words, people will not be able to enter the website directly.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai also had a communication problem. After announcing a large number of AI products at a developer's meeting last week, he conducted various interviews to promote them.

The question that comes back in common was, "If you introduce a generative AI search, all websites will die."

Pichai sighed or shook his head as if he was embarrassed during the interview. His response was, "If all the Internet sites die, Google dies. We won't let that happen."

Shrimp Jesus and the Dead Internet. In a way, it's kind of creepy, but there's a double whammy that the Internet, which we've been used to for the past 20 years or more, can be cataclysmic with AI.