蜜芽传媒

In the early 2020s, a conspiracy theory started circulating online known as the 鈥渄ead internet theory鈥�.

This suggested that, instead of a vibrant digital super-community where people freely share things like cat videos and conspiracy theories, the internet was instead basically dead - an AI dystopia controlled by the deep state, where almost everything you see and interact with is generated by computers.

The theory that the internet is 100% dead can be easily disproven, but the theory does hint at something real. The internet certainly is full of 鈥渂ots鈥�, autonomous bits of software that are definitely not alive.

In this episode, we investigate one specific claim about the number of these bots on the internet - the idea that more than half of internet traffic is bots. Where does this claim come from, and is it true?

Presenter/producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Giles Aspen
Editor: Richard Vadon