By Julie E 
Photo Credit (Freepik)
Older folks these days don’t look quite as jaded as those you encountered twenty to thirty years ago, you know? And you also question if it’s related to your own aging? This is not: Older adults nowadays have much greater physical and cognitive abilities, according to a recent Finnish study.
Thirty years ago, a battery of cognitive and physical examinations was administered to hundreds of Finns aged 75-80. Finns in their 75s and 80s underwent a rerun of the same tests in 2017 and 2018. Significant disparities were seen in the contemporary cohort:
tempos when walking. two to four meters per second strength for a quicker grasp increased knee extension strength of 5% to 25% A 20% to 47% improvement in thinking, working memory, and verbal fluency
This implies that the current generation acts and thinks in a more “younger” way. Professor Taina Rantanen of the University of Jyväskylä’s departments of gerontology and public health states, “Performance measurements reflect one’s functional age.” It is her main argument.
Improved performance in later life is likely due to either a reduction in the rate of aging or a greater peak ability in middle age, according to the researchers’ hypothesis. The second theory was backed up by a new study that found that higher levels of schooling are associated with better cognitive abilities, which in turn make decreases less noticeable.
Longer schooling was associated with better cognitive functioning, according to the Finnish researchers. “This cohort has grown up and lived in a different world,” remarks coauthor and postdoctoral researcher Matti Munkka, citing advancements in food, cleanliness, medicine, schools, and workplaces.
We need to rethink aging, according to Rantanen. The findings cast doubt on our conventional wisdom about aging. In comparison to the very end of life, more years are added to midlife.
penned by anorak
Among conspiracy theorists, there has been a widely held belief for the past seven or eight years. According to proponents of the so-called “Dead Internet” theory, the preponderance of artificially generated information has supplanted the organic, human-created content that drove the early web in the aughts and 00s. To sum up, the internet is “dead,” as real people aren’t making the material that the majority of us enjoy anymore.
The conspiracy element, however, is contingent upon an additional tenet of the idea. The theory put forth by the Dead Internet contends that the shift from human-created to artificially-generated information was intentional, driven by governments and companies seeking to manipulate public opinion.
I really like this theory as a novelist. This is perfect for a nail-biting techno-thriller! But in my capacity as a journalist, I’ve always found the idea to be completely insane. For the time being, at least. The Dead Internet idea has taken on more of a prophetic tone as of late, casting doubt on its earlier conspiracy credentials.
Robot slime
The conspiracy aspect of the theory is the first one I will examine. Although every nation-state and corporation attempts to influence narratives to some extent, it is highly improbable that any one or even a small number of them said, “Hey, let’s eliminate all user-generated content on the internet and substitute it with content that was artificially created.” To keep quiet and prevent the public from finding out would be an enormous undertaking requiring tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people.
Nevertheless, it is becoming more and more conceivable that the first component of the theory is correct—namely, that AI-generated material is gradually displacing human-created information on the internet. The proliferation of bots on social media platforms in the 2010s gave rise to this concept. On the other hand, traditional bots couldn’t come up with entirely made-up media like photos, movies, websites, and news stories. Computer programs do.
People have been utilizing ChatGPT to create material for websites, social media posts, and articles of all types since it emerged in late 2022. Popular social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok are now inundated with an endless deluge of images, videos, and artwork generated by AI image-generation algorithms.
This deluge of AI-generated videos has been particularly awful on TikTok as of late. Nearly all of the videos I see on the app—from the screenplay to the narration to the images—are created by AI. Also, I’d want to introduce you to Shrimp Jesus, but I won’t go into Facebook any further.