Myriad are the ways that herd our minds into pens of conformity.

From the ancient act of reading entrails, to modern subliminal perception, the design is our minds.

From the Shaman to Bernays, the goal is the same, only the tactics have changed.

The internet is a tool. Like all tools they can be used or misused, depending on the operator. The same can be said of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Combining the two in the hands of a system that is set to manipulate can be an insidious amalgamation of deception.

The latest iteration of this ageless practice of menticide is narrative control, in conjunction with AI.

It can be seen in AI written articles and AI bot controlled comment boards across the web. The bots have become so sophisticated that it's difficult to distinguish whether the writer or commenter is human or binary code.

And they are ubiquitous.

Wrongspeak is swarmed by bots, fake articles, fake comments, product reviews are manipulated, comments are hijacked, you're pushed or prodded into a bot mob of a preordained train of thought, fake images, fake videos, history rewritten. I could go on and on, but by now, you get the picture.

AI and AI bots are creating an alternative reality.

Even AI agents don't try hide it. Let's go to the source and ask the horse.

I asked Google Gemini about "AI created narratives" and this was the surprisingly forthright result:

AI Overview

AI is used on the internet to create narratives by automatically generating text, images, and videos that shape public opinion, market products, or spread false stories at a massive scale.

Generating Text and Articles

• Writing fake blogs: AI tools write hundreds of articles a day to push a specific political view or promote a product.
• Social media posts: Programs create realistic comments and posts on platforms like X or Facebook to make an idea look popular.
• Automated news: AI spins existing news stories with a specific bias to change how readers feel about an event.

Using Bot Networks

• Amplifying messages: Computer programs called bots share the same narrative thousands of times.
• Trending topics: Bots use hashtags to trick internet algorithms into putting a narrative on the main trending page.
• Fake profiles: AI generates profile pictures and personal histories for fake users who argue for a specific point of view.

Making Fake Videos and Images

• Deepfakes: AI creates hyper-realistic fake videos of real people saying or doing things they never did.
• Visual propaganda: Systems generate false images of news events to make people believe a story is real.

Targeting Specific Audiences

• Micro-targeting: Algorithms study user data to figure out what people fear or care about.
• Custom stories: AI tailors a specific narrative to fit the exact beliefs of a small group, making it very persuasive.

I mean, WTF, man?

After giving this much thought I've come to the conclusion this admission of AI created narratives is by design, the hands behind it don't want us believing our lying eyes.

The goal is a society of programmed automatons.

I then asked Gemini, "How many AI bots are there on the internet"?

AI Overview

There is no exact total count of AI bots on the internet, but automated programs and AI agents now generate more than half of all global web traffic.

Bot vs. Human Traffic

• 53% to 57% of all web traffic comes from automated bots.
• 43% to 47% of web traffic comes from humans.
• Automated traffic has outpaced human activity for multiple consecutive years.

Types of Bots Online

• Good Bots (13%): Helpful tools like search engine crawlers, monitoring services, and benign AI scrapers.
• Bad Bots (40%): Malicious scripts used for data scraping, credential stuffing, and ad fraud.
• AI Agents: A growing share of traffic comes from agentic AI systems visiting web pages to gather data and execute tasks at machine speed.

As reported by CNET, the internet is no longer mostly human, with automated requests scaling rapidly due to cheap deployment and the rise of AI automation.

You see what I mean?