Cloudflare exec: humans will become a 'rounding error' on the internet

A Cloudflare executive has said that human traffic on the web will eventually become so insignificant that people will be seen as a "rounding error." The statement comes amid a rapid surge in requests generated by artificial intelligence, which is already starting to dominate the structure of online activity.

According to the expert, large language models and automated systems processing massive amounts of data are the main drivers of this shift. The share of bots and algorithms in total traffic already far exceeds the actions of real users, and this trend is expected to intensify. Cloudflare stressed that infrastructure must adapt to a new reality where machine-to-machine interactions become the primary scenario.

As an illustration, a recent deal was cited: AMD acquired startup Taalas, which develops chips that embed AI models directly into silicon. This enables inference speeds of up to 17,000 tokens per second, making machine communications nearly instantaneous. Specialists believe such technologies will accelerate the transition to an internet where humans play a secondary role.

The growth of AI traffic is already creating challenges for security systems. The USENIX Security conference is seeing a record number of paper submissions related to artificial intelligence, though this has not yet become a serious problem. Autonomous systems designed to fix vulnerabilities often fail to fully remediate flaws without human oversight, requiring a rethink of cybersecurity approaches.

Experts also highlight the risks of using AI in critical scenarios. For instance, an offline AI assistant proposed as a survival tool is better suited for entertainment purposes, analysts argue, rather than entrusting it with health and safety. This underscores that, despite technological progress, the human factor remains crucial in situations where a mistake could be life-threatening.