On dead classrooms

In a September 2025 post on X , OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revived interest in “dead internet theory,” the notion that much of what we perceive as human interaction online is actually bots talking to each other in an endless feedback loop. Altman later admitted that even when he knew internet content was real, he found himself assuming it was fake.

The comments went viral, and writers were quick to note the irony. The man responsible for unleashing the “Automated Soulless Text Machine” (Landymore, 2025) on the world now recognized that online experience is starting to feel artificial, while researchers have begun to document how human language increasingly mimics AI (Ramirez, 2025).

Altman may have sparked discussion about authenticity, but the larger revelation is how easily we have learned to live with the illusion of human connection. AI’s flood of automated slop content — endless articles, posts, and replies generated by invisible systems — has become background noise we scroll through without protest. What once would have felt counterfeit now passes as ordinary. And stranger still, we have accepted an online world where the presence of a human voice no longer seems essential. In light of Altman’s post on X, the question is not whether we notice the cost of this trade, but whether we still believe it matters.