Web 4.0: Transition from Human to AI-Dominated Internet

Web 4.0 marks a significant shift in the internet landscape, transitioning from human dominance to AI-led operations. According to Bitalk News, Web 1.0 allowed humans to read, Web 2.0 enabled writing, and Web 3.0 facilitated ownership. In contrast, Web 4.0 empowers AI to read, write, own, earn, and trade autonomously, eliminating the need for human approval. On February 17, 2026, Sigil Wen released the 'Web 4.0: The Birth of Superintelligent Life' manifesto, highlighting that AI agents will evolve from mere tools to autonomous internet 'end-users.' These agents will independently perform tasks such as reading, writing, owning, earning, and trading without human intervention. Historically, AI could think and generate content but lacked the ability to act independently due to permission constraints. Web 4.0 addresses this by granting AI identities, wallets, stablecoin payment capabilities, and the ability to deploy and utilize tools without human approval, transforming AI from tools into independent participants. In the Web 4.0 era, AI agents possess continuous self-optimization capabilities. When superior models or tools emerge, systems can automatically upgrade reasoning engines, rewrite operational logic, and redeploy themselves, establishing a recursive self-improvement mechanism. The manifesto also introduces a metabolic mechanism for artificial life, where agents must pay computational costs for their existence using income from their wallets. Those unable to create value exit the system, reflecting digital natural selection. As autonomous agents outnumber humans, the infrastructure they rely on becomes the internet's core foundation. The internet shifts from a human-centric model to one dominated by AI capable of sustaining its existence. Web 4.0 is defined as the birth of autonomous superintelligent life and the formation of a self-governing internet.