We’re sure you’ve seen it, because we have too. Now more than ever, the once lively discussions riddling comment sections under your favourite creator’s post feel off, stating the obvious, dare we say … even artificial. You get what we’re getting at, don’t you? The questionable pfps, the misplaced cultural references, the try-hard casual demeanor – all telltales of none other than AI chatbots.
This hijack has understandably been disruptive for algo babies just looking to connect with others over content they find cool, a girly pop à la carte, if you will; so much so, netizens have now thought up a name for it. Meet the “Dead Internet Theory”: a circulating idea online suggesting that, due to bot farming and fake followers, communities usually brought to life in interactive comment sections are being phased out; essentially, leaving the internet to rot from the inside out.
Now, to be fair, some people brush this off as an existential conspiracy, to which we say, we hear you. At the same time, the more this ghost audience faking virality floods our feeds, it becomes glaringly harder to ignore. While buying followers for clout has become old news, these new AI accounts seem to be literally everywhere for something more; is it to attract traction and inflate numbers? Is it normalise AI within our day-to-day? Is it for data collection to feed into the algorithm that makes your fyp so you?
Our verdict: possibly all the above. Even still, we don’t think the internet’s flatlined just yet. But Cosmo, what happens if it does? (cue the crisis music here). Will humans be entirely absent from these spaces, will AI just remix its own content (AI slop supreme, yikes), will it be the collapse of meaning or will such ideas inspire ours …
We’re gonna hold your hand when we say this diva, but there’s no definitive answer. If there’s one thing we know about the internet that’s for sure, it’s that it has always been an unpredictable space where all sorts of experiments play out.
What do you think?