‘Dead Internet Theory’ explained: Why Reddit founder blames 'quasi AI' and ‘LinkedIn slop’ for killing the web

Over the past four years, the “dead internet theory” has emerged as a -conspiracy and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian appeared to back the idea.

The dead internet theory first surfaced on Reddit and has since garnered interest, with many people saying that the internet has now been taken over by bots.

Speaking to the hosts of the TBPN podcast on Monday, Ohanian blamed quasi-AI and LinkedIn ‘slop’.

“You all prove the point that so much of the internet is now just dead—this whole dead internet theory, right? Whether it’s botted, whether it’s quasi-AI, LinkedIn slop,” Ohanian said.

“Having proof of life, like live viewers and live content, is really f–king valuable to hold attention,” he added.

Not just Alexis Ohanian, AI founders like Sam Altman also appeared to somewhat agree to the dead internet theory conspiracy.

“I never took the dead internet theory that seriously, but it seems like there are really a lot of LLM-run Twitter accounts now,” he wrote on X last month.

What is the dead internet theory?

The dead internet theory got attention on Reddit a few years back. One post on Reddit by a user named IlluminatiPirate, viewed more than 3,62,000 times, which elaborates on the death of the internet.

The dead internet theory is largely a conspiracy theory, which suggests that the internet has almost entirely been taken over by AI and bots, as well as autonomous machines.

The conspiracy theory further says that the accounts and profiles you interact with on social media are in fact just bots.

The dead internet theory also suggests that users are hardly interacting with real human beings on the internet, and everything you see online is a machine-facilitated illusion, similar to ‘The Matrix’ movie.

The theory has gained traction as over the recent years, social media platforms have been infiltrated by bot accounts on a mass scale. The rise of AI chatbots have further facilitated this practice.

What's the solution?

According to Alexis Ohanian, the solution to control the power of bots on the internet could be made by making apps more human.

“I think we‘ll see a next generation of social media emerge that’s verifiably human because it’s all going down in the group chats now—that is not novel tech,” Ohanian said.

“There’s got to be some next iteration of that, because that’s where all of us are getting our, really, best info now.”