The “dead internet” theory gets thrown around a lot these days especially by people critical of AI. The worry is that large language models and bots will flood the web with so much synthetic content that real human interaction will disappear - that everything will become artificial, empty, and repetitive.
But I’d argue we’re already well into that phase - and it didn’t take AI to get us here.
Originality is rare. Most content is recycled, reposted, reformatted like an endless stream of re-runs. Even the way people respond has become increibly predictable. You can write something mildly controversial or just unfamiliar, and you already know what you’re going to get: knee-jerk downvotes, the same tired comebacks, some vague accusation about your motives or identity - not a genuine engagement with the point. People don’t seem to read anymore so much as scan for whether you’re “one of them” or not.
And that’s the thing. Most users aren’t engaging with ideas - they’re running scripts. They’ve absorbed certain patterns from years online and now just execute them reflexively: a snarky quote from a meme here, a one-liner they saw get upvotes last week there. It’s social media call-and-response. And it’s killing the internet way more effectively than any AI could.
And yes, I already know how some people will respond to this - with some version of “I’ve never had those issues, maybe you’re the problem.” But never facing pushback isn’t a flex when you’ve been conditioned to avoid it. It’s like priding yourself on never failing when in reality you’ve never even taken a risk. Of course it feels like everything is fine if you’ve learned how to blend in. You’ve trained yourself not to touch the wire. That doesn’t disprove the problem. It is the problem.
People were “running a script” probably since communication existed.
“Hey how are ya.”
“Imgoodhowareyou”
“Bloody weather ain’t it”
<inaudible>
This is real human interaction. The point of interaction is not to always get some new ideas across, but the interaction itself. Just to reassure yourself that other people still exist. For many people, knowing the script exactly is a good thing. They know exactly what to say, how long it will take, and its impossible to get wrong.
For many people, knowing the script exactly is a good thing.
Yup! Hate it when people go off-script!
Relevant stand-up.“Ehh… not so good, I just found out my wife’s been cheating on me for about two decades… My kids might not even be mine! Ahhh fuck…”
Okay, take it from there!
This is why I’ve switched back to the old internet. Chat like irc/matrix for social interaction. RSS for information. And webrings for browsing the personal garden websites that used to constitute the internet before social media took over. It’s been great.
The good internet magazine has been writing about this and is my inspiration
As well as the internet history podcast.
I agree for the most part.
I think you’re really describing social media rather than “the internet”. Of course some elements of the internet still enrich our lives.
Social is tricky. As much as I dislike the term I think an “addiction” is probably the most app. I just naturally open up some kind of feed when I need to take five minutes off. It certainly doesn’t enrich my life.
Dead internet theory long predates genAI/LLMs.
I know. I don’t see how that invalidates my criticism.
It doesn’t, my point is that this isnt anything new, and your take isnt particularly novel or controversial.
I agree, the internet started dying before AI, not necessarily because of repetition or predictability, at least from my pov. It’s the political manipulation, the greed for getting and selling data and the advertising that is killing the internet.
AI is just the last blow to something that is already gasping for air.
Ah yes, the good old “everybody else is an NPC, but I, the superior specimen, see things clearly”.
And yes, I already know how some people will respond to this - with some version of “I’ve never had those issues, maybe you’re the problem.”
Maybe you don’t quite have things as figured out as you think you do?
It’s not that I’m trying to say what you’re describing isn’t a problem, but this tired schtick in itself is just another “script” as you called them, and I seriously doubt variations of that are going to be the main response. This line of thinking isn’t particularly novel in any way, in some ways people have been going “y’all are just automatons” for thousands of years now, and eg. Yrjö Kallinen, a Finnish politician, talked about this stuff in the 70’s and probably earlier too (there’s a playlist of this on Youtube in Finnish for any Finnish speakers who might be interested) – the phrasing he used was that most people live like they’re “in a dream”.
So, it’s not necessarily that you’re wrong, but that this kind of “automation” is a lot more widely recognised that you give people credit for
Nearly everything has been said before, but because nobody was paying attention, it needs to be said again.
Places online can only be as interesting as the people behind it. This is why 4chan was the internet’s main meme factory in 2010/20, which would eventually trickle down on the well known pattern of Reddit->9GAG->Facebook. Not only did it host the funny and original neurodivergent folks of the world, but the space was as close to free speech (and slurs were restricted too!) as I’ve ever seen online. What can, for example, the heavily propagandised American, scared of original thought and shamefully out of practice, produce as valuable speech online?
