Bots and AI constitute the invisible side of Internet traffic | Traditional ai examples | Generative ai tools free | Generative ai certification microsoft | Turtles AI

The growing use of bots on the Internet represents one of the most significant transformations in global web traffic, with implications that go beyond simple automation. According to the Fastly Threat Insights 2024 report, more than 36% of global internet traffic is generated by bots, while the remaining 64% comes from human users. Bots, which have long been present online, are now increasingly advanced and widespread, thanks to the progress of AI. These tools, while useful for some legitimate purposes such as customer support, are also exploited for malicious activities, including creating fake news, manipulating content on social media, and altering data on advertising platforms.

Key Points:

•  Bots generate over 36% of global web traffic, with the increase driven by AI.
•  Bot farms falsify interactions and views, inflating online engagement data.
•  Increased automation makes online content harder to distinguish from that created by humans.
•  Technology companies and security experts face new challenges related to the use of malicious bots.

Among the consequences of this phenomenon is the increase in "fake" traffic, with bots simulating interactions to inflate the number of views and clicks on platforms such as "YouTube and Instagram". This creates a system where engagement metrics become unreliable, hurting both advertisers and content creators. According to analysis by "Fastly", bot attacks have increased significantly in recent years, with mass scanning techniques used to find vulnerabilities in corporate security systems. Another related phenomenon is the use of "bot farms", systems organized to generate fake clicks and interactions in order to manipulate algorithms and promote inauthentic content.

The integration of AI has made these bots even more sophisticated, allowing them to produce content that is increasingly credible and difficult to distinguish from that generated by humans. This phenomenon has fueled discussions of theories such as the ’dead internet’ theory, which holds that much online content is now controlled by automation rather than real people. The ’dead internet theory’, which emerged in the late 2010s, argues that human activity on the web is gradually giving way to bots, which generate content and manipulate traffic.

The growing use of bots represents a major challenge for cybersecurity, as bots not only create spam and false interactions, but are also used for cyber attacks, such as "DDoS" or credential theft via automated attacks. The problem is becoming increasingly complex and requires the development of more advanced security strategies to mitigate the effects of this automated traffic.

It becomes essential for users to develop a critical approach towards online information, as the reliability of content is continually called into question by these dynamics.