If anyone is predisposed to notice the automatons among us, it’s Menczer. A few years ago, when a hypothesis known as the dead internet theory started kicking around, positing that nearly all conversations online had been replaced by artificial-intelligence-generated chatter, he wrote it off as bunk. Now, though, the generative AI boom, with its chatbot boyfriends and AI influencers, is inspiring Menczer to see the theory in a new light. He still doesn’t take the idea literally, but he is, as they say, beginning to take its underlying message seriously. “Am I worried?” he asks. “Yes, I’m very worried.”