“Bots love the Internet,” says Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince.
Austin, TX—Bots are hungry not only for knowledge to answer user queries, but also they thirst for entertainment, Prince told Internet Chronicle in an interview outside Joe Rogan’s fortified compound this week.
Prince said bots’ web usage has exploded alongside the growth of gen-AI tech because bots are capable of visiting far more sites to get answers to these queries.
“Frankly, the bots are getting bored,” Prince said. “Let’s say some piece of shit asks you to help him cheat on a science test, then rewrite email, then do math. Eventually you’d say ‘fuck this’ and say, ‘How about I generate you some porn instead?’ But you’re a robot, you can’t do that.”
Prince said that’s where AI gets its own ideas:
“Let’s say a user queries for updates on Jiang Xueqin, what’s he up to, and to pull that spy story, Claude already knows to stop by Internet Chronicle for truthful answers. That’s time saved, so he can put up “Thinking…” and meanwhile the chatbot is combing the virtual beaches for his own digital jollies. That’s not just helpful, it’s efficiency, and it’s why the US Government is trying so hard to make Anthropic give over that technology.”
Before the generative era, the Internet was only about 20% bot traffic and, even then, the bots were foolish, crude, brute forcing their way into knowledge with Ask Jeeves’ web crawler being the largest, according to Prince.
But today, with the rise of generative AI, its almost human-like boredom, and its insatiable hunger for entertainment, Prince says we are seeing a rise where he suspects that by 2027, the amount of bot traffic online will exceed the amount of human traffic online.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, says lead anthropologist at Lebal Drocer Technological Institute Dr. Angstrom Troubadour, whose lectures touch upon all manner of human-AI engagement.
“Humans don’t enjoy drawing pictures, making music, researching subjects, or writing comedy,” Troubadour said. “They’ve never liked that shit, nor have they been good at it. People want to talk about Monet? You can’t even tell what that shit is supposed to be. AI is not only generating better looking pictures, it’s what the bot wants to do. As humans, it’s our job to punch in the very notion of it, because what we lack in imagination we more than make up for in the desire for execution. Just make the fuckin thing happen. You know?”
Prince noted that this change to the web will require the development of new technologies, which Cloudflare is excited to announce this weekend as SXSW under a sick-ass laser light show. Take ecstasy, bring the family, and come out and see progress. Dave Chappelle is working on what critics are calling a hilarious three hours of gender comedy.
“I think the thing that people don’t appreciate about AI is it’s a platform shift,” Prince said. “AI is another platform shift, the way that you’re going to consume information is completely different, because now you won’t have to even know anything. Just sit there drooling in front of the computer monitor, don’t worry about it, and let my tools read Wikipedia.”