The robots eating our energy

The "Dead Internet" conspiracy theory is the idea that bots are now so pervasive online you could be the only human in online exchanges, without realising.

The truth is darker and hungrier than that.

Few are talking about it.

Bad bots lurk in the dark forest

Bad bots* represent 32% of all web traffic, up almost 2% on last year and continuing to rise through 2024, according to Imperva's tracking of all tracking for cybersecurity purposes.

The truth is active and aggressive, akin to worst-case game theory or the "dark forest", for anyone familiar with author Cixin Liu. I got into marketing because the internet had amazing communication potential. The internet isn't dying, it is under attack.

Beyond cybersecurity, more professionals should follow Imperva's work in this space; marketers, advertisers, product owners, digital budget holders should all be highly concerned about the effectivity of their spends, knowing this truth about the internet and actively pressing leading digital gatekeepers, media owners and regulatory institutions to prioritise change.

Bad bots use the same energy you do

If bad-bots represent 31% of all web traffic, that's potentially 270 terawatt hours (TWh) being wasted each year by malicious technologies - equivalent to all of 2022’s growth in solar power generation**.

The Internet requires approximately 900 TWh to run in 2024, jumping to 2,000 TWh by 2030 (Thunder Said Energy forecast). Internet energy usage is equivalent to the global airline industry (OurFuture Energy)

Does anyone care? There's already an immense problem of satisfying the exponential needs of data centres and AI and for what? To enable a third of stuff that is designed to attack and scam citizens, societies and businesses?

Bad bots love you doomscrolling

Know that bad bots supercharge internet negativity. In a world where doomscrolling might be half of what we consume online every day, that's 459 terawatt hours (TWh) being wasted each year feeling like total crap.

According to one study, the average American spends 3 hours and 15 minutes per day mindlessly doomscrolling. That means Americans 51% of the 6.36 hours they spend online each day is for doomscrolling. Americans aren’t even pessimistic people, scoring 6.7 in the UN World Happiness Index (23rd) versus a world average of 5.5.

Bad bots cost the Earth

Add another $43 billion USD to the $50 billion bill for global online fraud losses linked to bot attacks and the $71 billion cost to advertisers for bot clicks and fake traffic - a total bill of $164 billion factoring the hidden energy cost of bad bots that will continue to rise and that’s probably still not everything.

Calculations based on data from World Population Review.

Shouldn’t this be a no-brainer? There's no carbon versus renewable, there is no "woke", there is only waste - to form another front to pressure digital gatekeepers and institutions to do far more to cut the impact of bad bots, protect the internet and cut spiraling energy demands.

*Bad bots interact with applications in a way that mimics legitimate users, making them more challenging to detect and block. They exploit business logic by exploiting an application’s intended functionality and processes rather than its technical vulnerabilities. Bad bots facilitate high-speed abuse, misuse, and attacks on websites, mobile apps, and APIs. They allow bot operators, attackers, unsavory competitors, and fraudsters to engage in malicious activities. (Reference: Imperva 2024 Bad Bot Report)

**Note that energy consumption is clearly not created equal, it would need a data scientist with access to all the types of internet usage to accurately predict the wastage of bad-bots, but it is clearly a big, unaffordable waste.