How a 4chan conspiracy (kind of) foresaw the death of the internet

The internet has no shortage of bots snaking through its pixelated corridors. Take the automated LLMs flooding the comments section of X with out-of-context responses and porn ads or the suspiciously sexy avatar with zero followers liking your Instagram stories. The AI-generated muzak garnering thousands of hits on streaming services or the millions of discarded images tossed to the pits of Midjourney’s text-to-image prompt machine. Given all the artificial intelligence swallowing up our feeds, it isn’t too far flung to assume the internet has been entirely overrun with bot-on-bot action. Enter: the Dead Internet Theory.

The Dead Internet Theory is a conspiracy theory that the internet is controlled by artificial intelligence and that most of the content we see online today is generated by bots instead of real humans. The theory originates from an anonymous post made on either 4chan or Wizerdchan back in 2019, eventually making its way to 4chan’s /x/ board in September 2020. The post hypothesises that the internet is produced by AI networks run by the Powers That Be – and paid influencers – for the purpose of creating consumers for the consumption cycle, which is, as far as conspiracy theories go, not the wackiest idea to hit the datastream.