I predict a return to private communities on the Internet and bulletin boards where verified humans hang out, away from the rest of the garbage the Internet will become filled with.
I am an optimist
I suspect newer platforms and small enclaves that want to be larger will be tempted to use AI. Reddit's founders infamously created fake accounts and put fake posts on their platform when it started to make it look active.[0] That was actually a pretty common technique to address the "chicken and egg" dilemma that every new forum has: Nobody wants to join a forum that has no posts and no active users but the forum won't get posts or active users unless somebody joins. AI can solve this problem much more efficiently than if the founders are writing the fake posts.
[0]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/reddi...
Of course they are controlled by a real human. The question is if that human is posting or an AI controlled by the human?
I think that's excessively cynical take. "People" might care about network effects more than a lot of other things technology people thing they should care about, but I don't think that will extend to socializing with networks of bots.
A lot of tech people tend to focus too much on surface appearances and neglect social context. A connection with a bot is not equivalent to a connection with a real person, even when a tech person can't distinguish the posts.
We already have shop small (business) thanks to AMEX and numerous others.
Verified? Meh. Not necessary. I can’t think of how that would improve my experience.
And if an AI is able to offer such a compelling long-term character development and online relationship and regularly offers insights and new ideas and empathy, we’re already into a deeply philosophical place about authenticity and if it really matters.
You have no idea if I’m an AI right now. If I am, would this comment suddenly become invalid? The information and idea here is what matters, no? Do you need to know much about the corporeal flesh bag mashing the buttons?
But does it even matter? Everyone online is a cat.
Yuval Noah Harari goes into this in detail that this is actually a huge risk. Imagine an AI controlled by a single with a hidden motivation. But also imagine it is a really good AI that 99% of its communication is towards building a friendship long term relationships with particular users on hundreds or thousands of forums.
You now have an intimate relationship and when political season comes around and they make a recommendation you trust what that 'person' says because they don't generally talk about politics. And so do thousands of other people.