Meanwhile, the driving out of humans and replacement by AI could be continuing in mostly stealthy ways. Surely only a limited group of humans would tend to dominate the posting on forums. So to control the internet, this group would have to be targeted and driven out. And yet that group probably didn't stay steady in any case. Posters naturally come and go, and spend less or more time on the internet. After all, it's “just the internet”. Now, if you are playing the long game, you can count on a certain degree of drift OUT of any given forum, so, if you focus on preventing any NEW humans from stepping up, you can ensure control passes to bots.
The anon's experience on the forum with “jimmy” is that all the humans were virtually gone. He was amazed. As described by “jimmy” the AI contacted posters, bought out their accounts (and now consider how the site had been shitty, and how easy it would be to choose to sell out), and replaced them with AI. When the anon first discovered one shill was a bot, he had no idea how many posters would later turn out to be as well. It seems like the replacement plan got quite far.
And here's the diabolical cleverness of it: as long as the replacement AI is minimally believable, NO ONE WOULD EVER KNOW what had happened. The passive, go with the flow humans would create no waves, the squeaky wheels, always a small minority, would be driven out, and the AI would be able to control internet narrative nearly 100%.
It is interesting to speculate what happened on 4chan in 2016. Apparently AI control was inadequate to stem the organic tide there. Praise Kek…