The dead internet theory is the theory that most “people” on the internet are actually bots, not humans. This idea was originally considered a fringe conspiracy theory, but lately more and more people believe it is becoming true. Today many social media accounts are actually bots posting AI-generated content. Some of them are quite realistic and you may not realize they aren’t real people.
Social media bots can post anything. Some of them are used to spread political agendas while others repost popular memes to gain large follower counts. T-shirt bots steal images on popular posts and sell them on t-shirts and other objects. This has become a problem for artists who share their artwork online.
There are even bots who can reply to your posts and hold conversations. On Bluesky, a relatively new social media site, there are “insult bots” and “disagreement bots” that argue and create rude replies on random people’s posts.
Bots also lurk on web forums like reddit. This is usually done for advertising purposes. The bots will copy and paste content from other users to seem legitimate and become popular, then they will start spamming links to the owner’s business- usually while pretending to be a satisfied customer. It’s a form of dishonest advertisement.
Bots can even create images. Some of these images are bizarre and nonsensical. Facebook is filled with images of “shrimp Jesus,” computer-generated images of Jesus with shrimp features. These posts have thousands of “Amen” replies, which are also coming from bots. What is the point of an internet that is only “conversations” between robots instead of humans? This is why some people argue that the internet is becoming “dead.”
Unfortunately, because the bots are designed to resemble real people and blend in with them, it is difficult for moderators to deal with them. It would be best if laws required AI-generated content to be clearly identified, though this may be difficult to enforce. Until then, be wary! If someone says something strange to you online, they may not be a “someone” at all. It may just be a bot designed to troll you or sell you something.
