Fake takes over, and we retreat to human spaces
Believe it or not, I actually typed these words. But first I had an idea in my head, based on what I’ve read recently, and what I have noticed intuitively.
The internet is no longer a place of people. It’s mostly a place filled with Generative AI. No, my dog Maple (featured) can’t really drive.
Here’s some stats. According to the latest 2025 Imperva data, bots have officially taken over the internet — 51% of all web traffic is now bots, not humans. And it’s not just the good kind: 37% of all traffic in 2024 was “bad bots,” supercharged by off-the-shelf AI tools that let anyone launch attacks.
Over half the articles published from 2025 were completely AI-generated. Not assisted, enhanced or proofed… done in their entirety. The machines aren’t just posting, they’ve flooded the pipes.
That said, the internet had devolved somewhat before the Gen AI era. Bo Burnham gave a perfect synopsis in his brilliant song – Welcome to the internet. I wrote quite a cerebral post about this last year — Mirror World Drift. It is happening faster than I thought. Weirdly, this could be a good thing. We are about to enter a new two-speed internet — let’s call it the Splinternet.
Two different places for two different species. One with humans and one with bots. Think of it like McDonald’s and a Fresh Food Market. And just like the real world, people will have preferences, some will frequent both, but most will heavily favour one over the other.
The Bot Net
The bot apps are currently booming — we have Sora, Nano Banana, Meta vibesAI and even YouTube is filled with AI slop. Internet-style junk food — i.e., highly processed. Not to mention the disturbing arrival of AI-generated porn — where the viewer is the designer and director.
Porn aside, these apps don’t even pretend to be human. Which is totally fine and exactly as it should be. Because we know what we are getting — the output matches the context, and maybe that’s exactly what someone feels like consuming.
Honestly, I don’t think people like it when the two are mixed without notice. Despite the fact that Meta and other big tech firms ask people to flag AI content — it rarely is. Of course people using AI to distill, expand or make their thoughts more succinct is valuable. It’s a bit like putting a bit of salt or sugar on some home cooking. However, I think the large majority of the internet will become very bot-centric, very quickly.
But even when humans use a little AI to enhance their output we can smell it. It just doesn’t taste the same. And this, I think, will open the door for a human-centric micro-net to emerge.
The Human Comeback
In some ways it’s already arrived. We all know the real conversation happens with actual friends in the back channels and DMs — real conversations, real connections, real people. And on the open web, I’d much rather read someone’s point of view. What they said, wrote, or took live footage of. I’d rather consume that than the version where AI has rounded off the rough edges. Because the rough edges are what I come for.
Whatever you read here, you can be sure I wrote it. The only way I use AI is to check for spelling and grammar (and I even miss some of those — so you know it’s me).
Sure, we’ve had fleeting attempts at “human-only” spaces — BeReal being the classic example — but verification has always been the sticking point. Anyone can fake a moment if they try hard enough. A few niche platforms claim to be human-only, unedited, anti-AI refuges… and some get close. But none can guarantee it, because enforcing realness is technically messy.
That said, smart entrepreneurs will fill the void — they always do. The irony is delicious: we’ll use AI to prove we didn’t use AI… That aside, I think an entirely separate social net will emerge — places where everything ‘served up’ has to be human-generated. They’ll use biometric tools to prove it was made by a person, in the moment, with no edits, and no enhancements. It’ll be a kind of digital refuge where: your typos become your passport, your tone becomes your signature, your imperfections become your verification badge. A corner of the internet where human presence is the point — not the flaw.
But you can be sure I’ll participate in both, because value always depends on context and purpose.
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Keep Thinking,
Steve.