US EditionThe Internet Will Be More Dead Than Alive Within 3 Years, Trend Shows
Sam Altman notes AI and bot traffic now dominate online content, with reports showing bots account for over 50% of internet traffic, raising concerns about digital authenticity.
- In May 2025, data firm NewGuard identified over 1,000 web news outlets that are predominantly operated by automated bots, with many spreading false or misleading information about the conflict in Ukraine.
- The rise of autonomous algorithmic ranking systems and widespread use of large language models like ChatGPT have fueled the growth of AI-generated content online.
- Reports show bots constituted 42.3% of internet traffic in 2021, rose to over 51% by 2024, and ads for major brands often target these automated accounts, wasting advertiser funds.
- Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, wrote on X that although he was initially skeptical about the dead internet theory, he now observes that a significant number of Twitter accounts are actually operated by large language model-based bots.
- This trend suggests the internet is increasingly dominated by bots, posing challenges for content authenticity, user trust, and the future viability of human-generated digital content.
30 Articles
30 Articles
Inside the ‘Dead Internet’ Theory—and Why It’s Spreading
“i never took the dead internet theory that seriously but it seems like there are really a lot of LLM-run twitter accounts now,” wrote Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, last week on X in his typical all-lowercase style. Altman, CEO of the company that created ChatGPT, the world’s most popular AI text generator, drew irony on X. “You’re absolutely right! This observation isn’t just smart—it shows you’re operating on a higher level,” wrote one user, mimi…
Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?
Sam Altman’s recent remarks about the Dead Internet Theory come as studies show bots played a significant role in spreading misinformation between 2016-2017, and nearly half of all internet traffic in 2022 came from non-human sources. With the rise of generative AI like ChatGPT and Gemini, detecting fake accounts and synthetic content has become increasingly difficult
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