The Dead Internet Theory is a conspiracy theory that claims that most interactions on the internet, especially on social media, are carried out by bots instead of real people. Sometimes the theory is named without a conspiracy theory reference to criticize the increasing emergence of poor quality, AI-generated content.
The “Dead Internet Theory” consists of two assertions. Firstly, the theory claims that the internet will be “dead” from 2016 or 2017. This means that mainly bots would interact and human interaction would only make up a fraction. Secondly, it is usually accompanied by the assumption that a secret group (or an artificial intelligence itself) is using the internet to influence public opinion via disinformation and fake news. It is unclear where or when the theory originated or who spread it. It is assumed that the theory was spread in various internet forums in 2021 at the latest as a result of the hype surrounding ChatGPT and other major language models.
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