Artificial linking can be done through black hat techniques which will not remain log term in Google search engine. It is always treated as dead links.
Artificial linking definitely is not dead. Spamming, automated link building techniques and Public Blog Networks pretty much are dead.
If you create a link that looks like a real link then there is absolutely know way Google can know. Google can however look at a profile of links and check various factors for signs of unnaturalness / manipulation. i.e.
Unnatural anchor text ratio's
Unnatural diversification when compared to the overall link count