The dead internet theory is not really claiming that most of your personal interactions on the internet are fake.
It is, however, an interesting lens through which to view the internet. That it is no longer for humans, by humans – this is the sense in which the internet we knew and loved is “dead”.
Quanta interviewed 19 current and former NLP researchers to tell that story. From experts to students, tenured academics to startup founders, they describe a series of moments — dawning realizations, elated encounters and at least one “existential crisis” — that changed their world. And ours.
starting to suspect having a good conversation and feeling connected is not primarily eye contact or asking a lot of questions or not talking about yourself or whatever, or even curiosity, but some yet more fundamental thing that drives all of it like ... joie de vivre??
i get the sense the core thing is actually quite simple, and all the indicators... See more
If an AI companion becomes someone’s most consistent emotional presence, the right question isn’t “how do we stop this?” It’s “what does that say about the world around them?” Technological relationships are not new. What’s new is how effective they’ve become; and how clearly they mirror the gaps we’ve refused to address.