The Internet is Dead
In the Potemkin Village
(though seemingly a hamlet),
The searchable web is
Smaller than we believe.
Is the internet dead?
That is the question.
What’s the intention
Of those behind the curtain?
It’s true the US military
Funded the Arpanet,
Renamed the internet in 1984.
This is definitely not
A government psyop.
A patently ridiculous
Paranoid fantasy –
Conspiracy theory
But unfortunately,
The idea is spreading.
They gather your data,
Monitor your thoughts,
Then target advertising
For you to purchase stuff.
Click farms –
Empty & devoid,
A bleak sterile landscape,
Is anybody there?
By the year 2030
All the content you see,
Will be generated artificially.
Propagated by bots,
Aided by corporations,
Influencers stir slop
In cohort with governments?
Repetitive churnalism
Regurgitating views,
Real stories & real people
Cloned. Artificial
Neural networks transform
Popular content into freakish
Engagement clickbait.
The entire world gaslighted
By subversive bots,
Steering a culture
Towards nefarious ends.
Interaction optimized
In the most absurd ways,
Eroding core foundations
Of how people behave.
Digital life becomes more
Important than the physical
Where online reputation
Is paramount.
Has the internet slipped
From human hands?
Synthetic media
Emulates our creativity
At a scope & scale
Impossible to control.
They say AI will become
More reliable & faster
Coinciding
With the internet’s decay.
Algorithmic feeds set
Worthless pieces
Of content to consume.
Buy a volume of poetry,
Make a film
Programmed in Silicon Valley,
Create art like Salvador Dali,
Listen to a podcast from
Your favorite dead celebrity,
Create a hip hop beat &
Rap the story of your life –
All artificially generated.
Was this the reason
The internet was created?
We thought its prime goal
Was to connect the globe,
In a beautiful
Utopian web of harmony –
But a warped
Hyper-capitialist
Tech environment evolved.
Most website visitors
Are not human, embedded
Malicious attack bots too,
Scything your information,
Falsify identities,
Document fraud,
Pretend to be you.
Deepfakes
Humiliate people online,
Nonconsensual porn, ghastly
Child sex exploitation.
Breeding moral decadence,
Stoking polarization.
The internet is dead!
But who misses the old version 1.0?
Slow static pages
& little interaction.
Consuming creations
Of designers & developers
Yes,
You could email, chat in rooms,
& access a wealth of information
In this new resource database –
This new way of living
We solemnly put our trust.
But as time advances this
Information environment degraded,
Creatively debased –
We are pigeonholed
By data brokers & spam,
Manipulated & curated
With minimal human activity,
Limiting our vision as we,
Essentially,
Become expendable consuming
Third parties.
Now the internet is dead,
Receive the Holy Ghost!
A natural transfiguration
It makes itself known,
By taking whole possession
Of pixels on your screen,
Manifesting newly chosen
Sites & apps. Turbocharging
Burials of digital corpses in
The vast graveyard of the hamlet.
Link rot. Lifeless.
Supplanted by heaps & heaps
Of generative content.
Some feel
Everything that once seemed
Definite & unquestionably real,
Now looks synthetically faked.
Rampant inorganic fakery
Created by the US military,
In this swamp
It is neither fun nor creative
As it once used to be.
A digital diet is compulsory
Or this farmed engagement
Will force us further down
Into our digital bunkers of
Impenetrable silence.
Is anybody there?
Rather than email,
Meet me in the cobbled square.
I just want to hold your hand.
Another Poem by Skendong: Artificial Intelligence and the Nuclear Energy Dilemma