1# Human connections in the early days of AI
  2<span style="float:right;">*2025-06-03*</span>
  3
  4*Special thanks to [dhole](https://dhole.github.io) for review and suggestions.*
  5
  6### 1. Online world as an extension of physical world
  7IRL stands for 'in real life', used to describe the *offline* life of a person.
  8Many years ago, people started to notice that the online world is not
  9disconnected from the physical world, furthermore, it can be seen as an
 10extension of it. This was observed by the Invisible Committee:
 11
 12> *[...] if the hacker is ahead of his time it’s because he “didn’t think of this tool [the Internet] as a separate virtual world but as an extension of physical reality.”*
 13> <span style="float:right;">'To our friends' - by The Invisible Committee, 2014</span>
 14> <br>
 15
 16We've seen examples of this over the past couple of decades; with social
 17networks and their impact on professional politics and people's lives, but also
 18with cryptocurrencies, which on the early days most people considered them not
 19real money (not part of *reality*), while few hackers already saw them as a valid
 20form of currency.
 21
 22Another example was the [usage of "AFK"](https://youtu.be/KCAGb7oSwDs?t=72) by
 23the ThePirateBay founders, to refer to the world offline (instead of "IRL"):
 24
 25> *"We don't use the expression IRL, we say 'Away From Keyboard", AFK; we think
 26the internet is for real"* - Peter Sunde, 2009
 27
 28### 2. HyperReality
 29The offline world being extended by the online world brings us a form of
 30[*hyperreality*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality).
 31The simplified idea is that on top of *the reality* we create the hyperreality,
 32where traits from reality are enhanced, exaggerated, to the point where it's not
 33the original reality but something more, still to be consumed as reality.
 34
 35The music analyst Jaime Altozano [links](https://youtu.be/ySa67e0jKNA?t=759)
 36this concept (hyperreality) together with the [supernormal
 37stimulus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus) to the widespread
 38usage of autotune and similar tools, not for robotic-voice effects that we
 39usually identify as 'autotune', but for any singer that thanks to autotune
 40sounds 'more natural' with better pitch, without notes out of place (both live
 41and on record).
 42
 43Another example are the instagram filters, which while allowing people to
 44'enhance' their pictures, they define a new hyperreality of (among others)
 45smooth skin and white teeth, which renders the physical world not good enough
 46compared to the online filtered and enhanced hyperreality; this affects back to
 47the physical world, with people wanting to emulate the hyperreality that they
 48get in the online world into the physical world, resulting, for example, in the
 49increase of plastic surgery interventions and into teeth whitening treatments.
 50<br>People want to see their instagram filters in their mirror.
 51
 52### 3. Moving from content production to content consumption
 53Before the era of AI-content-generation tools, we were already seeing the normal
 54users (non-socialmedia-influencers) reducing their amount of posts creation on
 55the various social networks. The main chunk of the population was already on a
 56timid trend of reducing active production of content towards a more consumerism
 57role of social networks, where the production of content is left mostly in the
 58hands of a reduced minority (influencers, 'content creators').
 59
 60<div style="text-align: center;margin:20px;">
 61  <img src="img/posts/ai/idiocracy-couch.jpg" style="max-width:300px;
 62  display:block; margin: 0 auto;" />
 63  <div style="font-style:italic; font-size:80%;">Optimized <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqQ6D0Bu-a8" target="_blank">couch from Idiocracy</a> movie.
 64  </div>
 65</div>
 66
 67In the early days of social networks, people were sharing their daily life
 68experiences. As attention-gathering professionals (aka. influencers & marketing
 69professionals) started to proliferate, people reduced their rate of post
 70publishing, moving from a content-creation usage of social networks towards a
 71content-consumption kind of usage.
 72
 73Part of it might be due to just tiredness of the dynamics, in part as
 74consequence of the algorithms of the social networks being silently reshaped
 75towards exploiting human psychology for the respective app profit, or even due
 76cyber-maturing of the users; but it seems plausible that part of the reasons are
 77related to the attention-gathering professionals dominating those networks.
 78
 79<br>
 80On top of all those trends, this past year we've experienced an acceleration of
 81the enshittification of the major online social networks, the catalyst of it
 82being the usage of AI to generate content.
 83
 84### 4. aicceleration of the enshittification
 85
 86Social networks like reddit, since are mostly text based, were the first to be
 87hit by the first wave of AI-generated content. They suffered a substantial
 88[increase](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1jojjdj/anyone_else_noticed_many_aigenerated_text_posts/)
 89of the [AI bloat](https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1ap2fzi/reddit_slowly_being_taken_over_by_aigenerated/)
 90over [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/DeadInternetTheory/comments/1kauscy/spotted_on_reddit_ai_responding_to_an_aiwritten/)
 91past year, with 'real' users not being happy about it, usually flagging the
 92AI-generated posts, which become more common each day. In the long term, users
 93get fed up and migrate to other similar platforms with less AI bloat for the
 94moment.
 95
 96A potential conclusion is that, generally speaking, people don't feel eager to
 97spend (or waste) time to read AI-generated content that tries to appear as
 98human-generated. They want to read content from other real humans. As mentioned,
 99the result is that people get burned out from the platform.
100
101<br>
102With the [refinement](https://youtu.be/zmlbAbWQCVY) of AI-generated video,
103similar effects can happen on other social networks; it's now easier to generate
104attention-gathering content for instagram, facebook, tiktok, etc.
105
106### 5. Two overlapping worlds
107
108Leaving aside the implications around political manipulation and social
109disinformation, this can lead to two main outcomes with regards users relations
110with the online social networks (which both can overlap at different ratios):
111
112The obvious one is a bit of a dystopian future where people get more addicted to
113social networks to get the daily dopamine shots
114([soma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_(Brave_New_World)) style), and they
115prefer that to the physical world experiences.
116
117I would like to be a bit more optimistic and imagine a trend of people getting
118burned out by the AI-bloat and moving away from online social networks; valuing
119more real-human connections (which can happen also online, but filtering out AI
120content).
121This might result in a deepening of physical world connections, together with a
122revaluation of the physical world experiences (the famous *"touching grass"*
123meme), as a counterweight to the fake AI-generated hyperreality of the online
124social networks.
125
126<div style="text-align: center;margin:25px;">
127<img src="img/posts/ai/two-worlds.jpg" style="max-width:50%;" />
128</div>
129
130Online social networks could stop being *"the place where you get news from your
131friends lifes"* as it was some years ago, to become another cog of the
132machinery that provides passive entertainment (together with streaming services
133such as youtube, netflix, etc.), while the real-social connections happen
134offline, where AI can not easily inject content.
135
136<br>
137It could be the case too, that the platforms react to the AI-bloat and adapt the
138algorithms to avoid exhausting their users, therefore avoiding the mass exodus,
139since it would affect their bussiness. In any case, I encourage you to
140strengthen your bonds with your friends, family and communities :)