Let's Go Kill the Internet

- This article profiles "Doublespeed," a tech founder building a vast network of AI-generated influencers — realistic-looking digital personas that post, interact, and build followings on social media. The goal is monetizing through brand deals and affiliate marketing at scale, replacing human creators with synthetic ones.<br>- AI influencers can be deployed in unlimited numbers, never tire, and never cause "human" scandals, but they risk flooding platforms with fake engagement, eroding trust, and making it impossible to tell real people from bots.<br>- Key context: generative AI (Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, ElevenLabs) now makes it cheap to create convincing synthetic faces and voices. This follows the "dead internet theory" — the idea that most online activity is already bots.<br>- Platforms' terms of service require accounts to represent real people, but enforcement is inconsistent. The FTC has begun scrutinizing AI endorsements, but regulation lags behind the technology.