Summary
- Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, said the internet is becoming “robotic” due to the increase in low-quality content generated by bots and AI.
- Research indicates that 50.04% of internet traffic comes from robots, 4.8% of which are malicious bots.
- The European Union projects that, by 2026, 90% of online content could be generated synthetically.
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, stated that the internet is becoming a “robotic” environment, dominated by automated, low-quality content created by artificial intelligence. The statement was made in an episode of the Technology’s Daily Show podcast.
Ohanian also cited the “dead internet theory,” which suggests that bot activity will surpass human interaction on the web, and called for the creation of a new generation of “proven-human” social media.
At one point in the conversation, Ohanian told the podcast hosts that they “prove that most of the internet is dead” by representing a real communication space.
Search for more human connections
The businessman left Reddit’s board in 2020, and since then the platform has been taking measures to limit the use of its data by AI companies. According to Ohanian, the internet needs “viewers and live content”.
He believes the “next generation of social media will be demonstrably human,” driven by the desire for more authentic interactions.
In recent years, apps like Signal and Discord have grown by encouraging more direct and personal connections. Ohanian called them the “gold standard” for interaction, but said they don’t yet represent real innovation.
Ohanian also stated in the podcast that the internet needs new forms of “close interaction” that preserve the human experience — something that not even group chats guarantee, as many turn to AI to generate or edit messages.
Domination of bots and AI worries
The concern is shared. Recently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman mentioned that many X/Twitter accounts are already controlled by large-scale language models (LLMs), AIs trained to understand, generate, and interact as if they were real people. This perception reflects a trend that studies and market analyzes have been closely monitoring.
Recent data points to a significant increase in the presence of bots and AI-generated content on the internet. The 2025 Advanced Persistent Bots Report analyzed 207 billion web and API transactions in 2024. It reveals that 50.04% of internet traffic is made up of robots.
Of this total, 4.8% consists of traffic from malicious bots, which seek to monetize critical data on the dark web or simulate human behavior to manipulate engagement and algorithms.
In September last year, another study released by AWS indicated that more than 57% of online content was generated by AI, raising concerns about the accuracy of information and the potential risk of misinformation.
The European Union Law Enforcement Agency projects that by the end of 2026, 90% of online content could be synthetically generated.
With information from Business Insider
Source: https://tecnoblog.net/noticias/maior-parte-da-internet-esta-morta-diz-cofundador-do-reddit/
