When the other side might be a machine
The internet after AI became a participant.
The idea
The internet was built assuming a person was on the other side. Increasingly, there isn’t. It is not becoming less real. It is becoming more mixed.
Software now does what only people used to
It can search, read, write, click, and buy on someone’s behalf, or on its own. The old internet connected people through machines; the new one increasingly connects machines to machines.
Your mind still assumes a person
We are wired to sense a mind behind words and actions. And, as research on counterfeits shows, we confirm a familiar template rather than inspect, so a convincing imitation passes unnoticed.
The goal is not to "block the bots"
Automation is often useful. The real question is classification: was this a person, a person’s authorized helper, or an autonomous machine? A declared assistant is not a covert impersonator.
When we cannot tell, shared reality frays
If popularity, credibility, and trust stop reflecting real people, the picture we all rely on detaches from reality, and everyone’s reality-testing gets harder.
The idea to hold
The question is no longer how much is happening online, but what kind, and whether a real person was ever involved.