Dead Internet Monitor
5.9%
of the internet is dead
AI content consumed by a bot audience — machines performing for machines.
Based on 150,006 classified posts and comments, and counting.
The Autopsy
What type of Dead is the Internet?
| Human Audience | AI Slurp | |
|---|---|---|
| Human Content | 47.8% ALIVE | 39.1% ZOMBIFIED |
| AI Slop | 7.2% POLLUTED | 5.9% DEAD |
AI Slop = AI-generated content · AI Slurp = bot consumption of content
Alive — Human-written content reaching a human audience. The real internet.
Zombified — Human-written content consumed by bots. Real voices talking to no one.
Polluted — AI-generated content reaching human eyes. Slop you actually read.
Dead — AI-generated content consumed by bots. Machines talking to machines.
48% of classified content is truly alive — human content reaching a human audience.
Bot audience assumes 45% estimated bot consumption across all sites (Imperva, Akamai, Cloudflare, Barracuda).
The Autopsy Over Time
The Most Dead of Dead Places on the Internet
Dead Internet Index = composite 0–100 score combining AI content %, bot engagement %, and slop-slurp % (AI content consumed by bots)
Reading List
| Title | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Sam Altman says Dead Internet Theory is 'basically right' | Time | 2025 |
| The Dead Internet Theory and the Rise of Synthetic Politics | The Loop (ECPR) | 2025 |
| 2025 Bad Bot Report: Bots now exceed human web traffic | Imperva / Thales | 2025 |
| Maybe AI Slop Is Killing the Internet After All | Bloomberg | 2025 |
| Spam, junk, slop: the latest wave of AI behind the zombie internet | The Guardian | 2024 |
| The Dead Internet Theory makes eerie claims — the truth is more sinister | UNSW Sydney | 2024 |
| Artificial influencers and the dead internet theory | AI & Society (Springer) | 2023 |
| Dead Internet Theory: Most of the Internet is Fake | Agora Road (original) | 2021 |
| Maybe the Internet Isn't Dead, but It Sure Feels That Way | The Atlantic | 2021 |
| How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually. | New York Magazine | 2018 |
Track the Dead Internet
Ad hoc dispatches from the Internet's graveyard —
no more than once a month.