Said on X, which can be over 80 % bots.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hinted that he’s coming round to the useless web principle in an early September submit on X. His firm gave the world ChatGPT—the massive language mannequin (LLM) fueling the epidemic of social media bots and AI slop content material—which has many commenters fingering him because the man who did this.

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While it might be thought-about a conspiracy principle, an rising variety of people are beginning to suspect that the web is useless, or might be quickly.

Sam Altman pronounces the web useless

In an X submit on Sept. 3, 2025, Altman confessed that he “never took the dead internet theory that seriously,” however has come to note that “there are really a lot of LLM-run twitter accounts now.”

Dead web principle posits that the proportion of non-human social media accounts and different on-line content material handed the 50 % mark again in 2016. Full adherents to this principle consider that this represents an intentional and coordinated try and push out human exercise and management us all through misinformation and propaganda.

The extra informal use of the time period may check with a normal shift towards a web based bot majority. Whether or not there’s an unlimited conspiracy to manage the inhabitants, human site visitors has been creeping all the way down to the midway mark for years. In 2024, Imperva Bad Bot Report measured human site visitors at simply 50.4 %, with the remaining being bot exercise.

AI firms are completely fueling this shift, and it’s going to value human cash to fight.

“As more AI-enabled tools are introduced, bots will become omnipresent,” Imperva software safety normal supervisor Nanhi Singh instructed Forbes. “Organizations must invest in bot management and API security tools to manage the threat from malicious, automated traffic.”

In 2022, former CIA cyber-operations officer Dan Woods theorized that over 80 % of X accounts are bots. That was earlier than Musk took over.

“Facebook is nothing but bots”

Whether believers in useless web principle or not, many customers have overwhelmed Sam Altman to the problem. Any quantity of social media use today will convey you face-to-screen with apparent bots.

Altman stating the apparent about X received individuals speaking about the issue but once more.

“Facebook is nothing but bots and fake ai interaction posts,” stated Redditor u/starrpamph. “I can’t believe it’s still as popular as it is. Go on there right now. You won’t see anything from your friends.”

“How many AIO or AITA posts have the phrase ‘my family is divided’ at the end, when it’s super obvious the OP is not being unreasonable?” u/NameLips identified. “Very clear engagement bait.”

Back on X, customers targeted on making enjoyable of Altman for being this late to the sport he helped invent.

“I wonder why he calls it an LLM instead of ‘AI’ when he’s reflecting on the downsides,” mused @taste_of_tbone.

“Worldcoin founder says ‘never took the dead internet theory that seriously,’” mocked @onetwoval.

Others not-so-subtly accused him of utilizing ChatGPT to generate his tweet.

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