======================================================================
=                        Dead_Internet_theory                        =
======================================================================

                             Introduction                             
======================================================================
The dead Internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts
that, due to a coordinated and intentional effort, the Internet now
consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content
manipulated by algorithmic curation to control the population and
minimize organic human activity. Proponents of the theory believe
these social bots were created intentionally to help manipulate
algorithms and boost search results in order to manipulate consumers.
Some proponents of the theory accuse government agencies of using bots
to manipulate public perception. The date given for this "death" is
generally around 2016 or 2017. The dead Internet theory has gained
traction because many of the observed phenomena are quantifiable, such
as increased bot traffic, but the literature on the subject does not
support the full theory.


                          Origins and spread                          
======================================================================
The dead Internet theory's exact origin is difficult to pinpoint. In
2021, a post titled "Dead Internet Theory: Most Of The Internet Is
Fake" was published onto the forum Agora Road's Macintosh Cafe
esoteric board by a user named "IlluminatiPirate", claiming to be
building on previous posts from the same board and from Wizardchan,
and marking the term's spread beyond these initial imageboards. The
conspiracy theory has entered public culture through widespread
coverage and has been discussed on various high-profile YouTube
channels. It gained more mainstream attention with an article in 'The
Atlantic' titled "Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet 'Died' Five
Years Ago". This article has been widely cited by other articles on
the topic.


                                Claims                                
======================================================================
The dead Internet theory has two main components: that organic human
activity on the web has been displaced by bots and algorithmically
curated search results, and that state actors are doing this in a
coordinated effort to manipulate the human population. The first part
of this theory, that bots create much of the content on the internet
and perhaps contribute more than organic human content, has been a
concern for a while, with the original post by "IlluminatiPirate"
citing the article "How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot
of It, Actually" in 'New York' magazine. The Dead Internet Theory goes
on to include that Google, and other search engines, are censoring the
Web by filtering content that is not desirable by limiting what is
indexed and presented in search results. While Google may suggest that
there are millions of search results for a query, the results
available to a user do not reflect that.  This problem is exacerbated
by the phenomenon known as link rot, which is caused when content at a
website becomes unavailable, and all links to it on other sites break.
This has led to the theory that Google is a Potemkin village, and the
searchable Web is much smaller than we are led to believe. The Dead
Internet Theory suggests that this is part of the conspiracy to limit
users to curated, and potentially artificial, content online.

The second half of the dead Internet theory builds on this observable
phenomenon by proposing that the U.S. government, corporations, or
other actors are intentionally limiting users to curated, and
potentially artificial AI-generated content, to manipulate the human
population for a variety of reasons. In the original post, the idea
that bots have displaced human content is described as the "setup",
with the "thesis" of the theory itself focusing on the United States
government being responsible for this, stating: "The U.S. government
is engaging in an artificial intelligence-powered gaslighting of the
entire world population."


                             Expert view                              
======================================================================
Caroline Busta, founder of the media platform 'New Models', was quoted
in an article in 'The Atlantic' calling much of the dead Internet
theory a "paranoid fantasy", even if there are legitimate criticisms
involving bot traffic and the integrity of the internet, but she said
she does agree with the "overarching idea". In an article in 'The New
Atlantis', Robert Mariani called the theory a mix between a genuine
conspiracy theory and a creepypasta. The dead Internet theory is
sometimes used to refer to the observable increase in content
generated via large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT appearing
in popular Internet spaces without mention of the full theory.


 Large language models 
=======================
Generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) are a class of large
language models (LLMs) that employ artificial neural networks to
produce human-like content. The first of these to be well known was
developed by OpenAI. These models have created significant
controversy. For example, Timothy Shoup of the Copenhagen Institute
for Futures Studies said in 2022, "in the scenario where GPT-3 'gets
loose', the internet would be completely unrecognizable". He predicted
that in such a scenario, 99% to 99.9% of content online might be
AI-generated by 2025 to 2030. These predictions have been used as
evidence for the dead internet theory.

In 2024, Google reported that its search results were being inundated
with websites that "feel like they were created for search engines
instead of people". In correspondence with Gizmodo, a Google
spokesperson acknowledged the role of generative AI in the rapid
proliferation of such content and that it could displace more valuable
human-made alternatives. Bots using LLMs are anticipated to increase
the amount of spam, and run the risk of creating a situation where
bots interacting with each other create "self-replicating prompts"
that result in loops only human users could disrupt.


 ChatGPT 
=========
ChatGPT is an AI chatbot whose late 2022 release to the general public
led journalists to call the dead internet theory potentially more
realistic than before. Before ChatGPT's release, the dead internet
theory mostly emphasized government organizations, corporations, and
tech-literate individuals. ChatGPT gives the average internet user
access to large-language models. This technology caused concern that
the Internet would become filled with content created through the use
of AI that would drown out organic human content.


 2016 Imperva bot traffic report 
=================================
In 2016, the security firm Imperva released a report on bot traffic
and found that bots were responsible for 52% of web traffic. This
report has been used as evidence in reports on the dead Internet
theory.


 Facebook 
==========
In 2024, AI-generated images on Facebook, referred to as AI "Slop",
began going viral. Subjects of these AI-generated images included
various iterations of Jesus "meshed in various forms" with shrimp,
flight attendants, and Black children next to artwork they supposedly
created. Many of those said iterations have hundreds or even thousands
of AI comments that say "Amen". These images have been referred as an
example for why the Internet feels "dead."

Facebook includes an option to provide AI-generated responses to group
posts. Such responses appear if a user explicitly tags @MetaAI in a
post, or if the post includes a question and no other users have
responded to it within an hour.


 Reddit 
========
In the past, Reddit allowed free access to its API and data, which
allowed users to employ third-party moderation apps and train AI in
human interaction. Controversially, Reddit moved to charge for access
to its user dataset. Companies training AI will likely continue to use
this data for training future AI. As LLMs such as ChatGPT become
available to the general public, they are increasingly being employed
on Reddit by users and bot accounts. Professor Toby Walsh of the
University of New South Wales said in an interview with 'Business
Insider' that training the next generation of AI on content created by
previous generations could cause the content to suffer. University of
South Florida professor John Licato compared this situation of
AI-generated web content flooding Reddit to the dead Internet theory.


 "I hate texting" tweets 
=========================
Since 2020, several Twitter accounts started posting tweets starting
with the phrase "I hate texting" followed by an alternative activity,
such as "i hate texting i just want to hold ur hand", or "i hate
texting just come live with me". These posts received tens of
thousands of likes, many of which are suspected to be from bot
accounts. Proponents of the dead internet theory have used these
accounts as an example.


 Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter 
====================================
The proportion of Twitter accounts run by bots became a major issue
during Elon Musk's acquisition of the company. Musk disputed Twitter's
claim that fewer than 5% of their monetizable daily active users
(mDAU) were bots. Musk commissioned the company Cyabra to estimate
what percentage of Twitter accounts were bots, with one study
estimating 13.7% and another estimating 11%. CounterAction, another
firm commissioned by Musk, estimated 5.3% of accounts were bots. Some
bot accounts provide services, such as one noted bot that can provide
stock prices when asked, while others troll, spread misinformation, or
try to scam users. Believers in the dead Internet theory have pointed
to this incident as evidence.


 TikTok 
========
In 2024, TikTok began discussing offering the use of virtual
influencers to advertisement agencies. In a 2024 article in 'Fast
Company', journalist Michael Grothaus linked this and other
AI-generated content on social media to the Dead Internet Theory. In
this article, he referred to the content as "AI-slime."


 YouTube "The Inversion" 
=========================
On YouTube, there is a market online for fake views to boost a video's
credibility and reach broader audiences. At one point, fake views were
so prevalent that some engineers were concerned YouTube's algorithm
for detecting them would begin to treat the fake views as default and
start misclassifying real ones. YouTube engineers coined the term "the
Inversion" to describe this phenomenon. YouTube bots and the fear of
"the Inversion" were cited as support for the dead internet theory in
a thread on the internet forum Melonland.


 SocialAI 
==========
SocialAI, an app created on September 18, 2024, was created with the
full purpose of chatting with only AI bots without human interaction.
Its creator was Michael Sayman, a former product lead at Google who
also worked at Facebook, Roblox, and Twitter. An article on the 'Ars
Technica' website linked SocialAI to the Dead Internet Theory.


                          In popular culture                          
======================================================================
The dead internet theory has been discussed among users of the social
media platform Twitter. Users have noted that bot activity has
affected their experience. Numerous YouTube channels and online
communities, including the Linus Tech Tips forums and Joe Rogan
subreddit, have covered the dead Internet theory, which has helped to
advance the idea into mainstream discourse. There has also been
discussion and memes about this topic on the app TikTok, due to the
fact that AI generated content has become more mainstream.


 License 
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory