Alexis Ohanian, the cofounder of Reddit, believes that the era of building new social media apps has lost its appeal. Speaking at the first WIRED World Fair with senior correspondent Lauren Goode, Ohanian said that social media apps are losing their cool as the internet becomes increasingly compromised. He suggested that the next wave of user-generated content might look more like an improved group chat than a traditional public platform.
A Shift Away From Public Platforms
Ohanian’s assessment comes from a long and complicated relationship with the internet. He stepped down from Reddit’s board in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd, aiming to open a seat for a Black director and to push the company toward reforming its content moderation. Reddit had drawn criticism for allowing violent and harmful rhetoric to flourish. Ohanian recalled learning that someone who once had a Reddit tattoo—something he had seen as a mark of the site’s success—had since covered it up. He said he did not blame the person.
Now at the helm of the venture capital firm Seven Seven Six, which manages more than $1.3 billion in assets, Ohanian is concentrating on sports. In that space, he finds real-life communities that stand apart from what he describes as “AI slop” and a manipulated internet.
The Dead Internet Theory and AI's Role
Ohanian is a believer in the Dead Internet Theory, which holds that a large share of online activity and content is generated by bots. He argues that large language models have accelerated this trend, with AI agents now outpacing human users. The internet he grew up with was designed for people first, he said, but user interfaces and experiences are set to disappear because more of the internet will be created for agents rather than for humans.
Generative AI has been profitable for platforms like Reddit, which has licensed its archive of human conversations to companies including Google and OpenAI for model training. Ohanian acknowledged that platforms like Reddit became very valuable to large language models. Yet the technology has also cut against the business. Reddit shares fell 29 percent last week after the company warned that Google’s AI-powered search was reducing referral traffic.
Ohanian also worries that the commercialization of online conversations has filled them with what he called “bullshit.” The internet has become so manipulated, he said, because doing so is incredibly valuable.
The Search for Provable Humanity
Reddit recently announced that it would require users to sign in, a move aimed at curbing third-party scraping and sustaining user engagement. Ohanian declined to say whether he supports the policy, but he emphasized that there must be a way to prove humanity on the internet without being creepy.
Despite his concerns, Ohanian remains optimistic about AI’s potential. An early investor in Anthropic, he is particularly eager to see medical breakthroughs emerge from the technology. He cautioned that there is still a very real chance the technology could cause significant harm and that the industry must be sober about how it builds and what it does. Even so, he cannot help but see the many ways things could get demonstrably better.
