Experience the unsettling reality of modern social media through our LLM-powered simulator that reveals how bots or other actors can shape online discourse.
Large language models create eerily human-like conversations and responses, demonstrating how AI can manipulate social discourse. Use OpenAI's API or host your own models with Ollama or LM Studio!
Profiles are procedurally generated based off set simulation settings. Adjust probabilities to your heart's content to ensure new users are as close to your requirements as possible.
Fine-tune your simulation by providing custom instruction sets to the LLM. Implement specific settings or define new traits, biases, and behavioral patterns.
Let the system run autonomously with a click of a button. Watch as the LLM generates content, creates interactions, and simulates organic community growth, and adjust how often each type of behavior is performed.
View your generated user profiles to understand their interests, analyze behavior patterns, and track content engagement over time.
Manually inject custom content, events, users, and instruction sets to observe how they influence the simulated environment.
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Download the files and extract to a directory of your choice.
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Install dependencies:
npm install && npm audit- Start the simulation:
npm run dev- Node.js 18+
- Modern web browser
- API key for OpenAI OR a device capable of running Ollama/LM Studio
- The 3B Llama 3.2 model works amazingly well for this type of project, and was used for much of the testing on an M1 MacOS device due to its speed.
Dead Internet is a simulator that demonstrates how AI and bots can create the illusion of human activity on social media platforms. It was originally designed as a thought experiment and digital sandbox, but also happens to be effective at raising awareness about the prevalence of automated interactions online.
The name is taken from the "Dead Internet Theory" (though not an inspiration for the project itself), which suggests that much of the internet's activity and content is now generated by bots and AI rather than humans, leading to a decline in authentic human interaction online.
No. Dead Internet is an educational tool designed to demonstrate and study automated behavior. It operates in an isolated environment and cannot be used to create actual social media accounts or interact with real platforms.
Nope! Instruction sets allow you to give overrides to the LLM and lets you ignore these settings if you desire. Additionally, you can uncheck "Use region distribution weights" found inside Simulation Settings > Region Distribution.
If it helps to get started, you can use this test prompt that was created during development:
This social media is a Roleplay social media - similar to Dungeons and Dragons, and set in a different universe from real life earth. Theme everything possible as if it were in a fantasy world and setting. All events, comments, etc. should be in character. Technology, aside from social media, is relatively primitive unless achieved by magic. Cameras, internet, airplanes, etc. do not exist in this world.
Dead Internet is open source and free to use, but you can always help by:
- Spreading the word
- Giving attribution when used in projects
- Sending a tip if you're feeling extra generous 🍻