Isโข the internet “Dying”? Concerns Riseโฃ Over AI-Generated Content
Sam Altman, โCEO of OpenAI -โ the company behind ChatGPTโ – has recently acknowledged the growing plausibility of the โ”dead internet theory,” a long-heldโ belief frequently โฃenough relegatedโ to โthe realm of conspiracy.The theory posits that a notable portion ofโข onlineโ content is now automaticallyโ generated, effectivelyโค rendering the internet largely โinactive in termsโ of genuine human interaction.
Altman previously dismissedโข the โidea, but recently stated he now believes “some things may be real,” noting a โฃconsiderable increase in Twitter accounts managed by Large Language Models (LLMs). This admission โhas fueled โdiscussion among experts who suggestโ the internet may be closer to a state of “dying” than previously thought.
The first visible signs of this shift began appearing in 2024, โwith social media usersโข encountering increasingly complexโ images created by artificial intelligence. While seemingly innocuous, these images were interpreted as indicators of AI-generated content beginning โtoโฃ displace human-created content. Jake Renzella of the University of New southโ Wales and Melbourne โฃUniversity, and Vlada Rozova, writing in The Conversation,โฃ noted that some of these hyper-realistic visuals garneredโ over 20,000 likes andโฃ comments, supporting the idea โthat AI-producedโ content isโ gaining prominence.
Data from cybersecurity firm โคImperva โsupports this trend. Their โฃ2024โข report revealed that nearly half (49.6%) of all internet โtraffic originated from โฃautomated โsystems – a significant increase from 42.3%โฃ in 2021. โIf this trajectory continues,โ botsโฃ couldโ becomeโข the majority source of internet traffic by the end ofโ the 2020s.
Further evidence โcomes from the Pew Research Center,which found thatโค 38% of web pages createdโข by humans in 2013 are no longer accessible,aโค phenomenon knownโค as “link rot.” Popular Mechanics suggests these developments reinforce the idea that the โคinternet is evolving from being “by people, โฃfor people.”
Renzella andโ Rozova attribute much of โthis activity to “interaction farming” driven by bots, capitalizing on the equationโ of โinternet attention with revenue. โTaylor Lorenz, โคa former โreporter for The New York Times and The washington Post, described the rise ofโ algorithmicโข content โฃas the beginning of the internet’sโ “terminal” decline, arguingโ that AI-powered โranking systems haveโฃ paved the way for โan influx of “endless, worthless content.”
The impact extendsโ to news dissemination.โฃ A Mayโ 2025 reportโ by Newguard โคidentified over a thousand newsโฃ sites almost entirely managed by bots. Alarmingly,167 of these sites masquerade as Russian local news sources,spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine using AI-generated โฃcontent.
While Altmanโ doesn’t foresee the disappearance of personal messages โขor shared experiences,heโค cautions users to beโ more discerning in differentiating between authentic and automated content. โ Renzella and Rozova are moreโ pessimistic, suggesting the internetโข as weโ know it โขhas “three โคyears of life” remaining, lamenting the loss of the โคfree exchange of ideas that once defined the platform.