“You’d be hard pressed to find someone who has spent more time building or obsessing over the online zeitgeist, for better or for worse,” Alexis Ohanian introduced himself at the BRIDGE Summit in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Ohanian, a founding partner at venture capital firm Seven Seven Six, is perhaps best known as the co-founder and former executive chairman of Reddit. “Being chronically online was part of the job,” he said, as part of a conversation with TIME executive editor Nikhil Kumar. TIME is a media partner of the BRIDGE Summit, which has gathered a global community of creators, policymakers, investors, technologists, media institutions, and cultural leaders to discuss the landscape and future of media.
But the advent of artificial intelligence has made platforms like Reddit, which once served as hubs of connection, less human, Ohanian said. “Conservatively, I’d say 20% of all the content we see on social media is fake in some form or another,” he said, echoing some concerns that others have labeled the dead internet theory. “No one really is immune,” he added, explaining how AI models that train on social media data have incentivized the mass creation of content, often utilizing AI, simply to manipulate those models.
Ohanian said he isn’t sure how the problem will be solved—“Someone is going to have to crack what the next wave of social media looks like that verifies humanity or somehow allows us to understand who is real, without scanning everyone’s retina”—but he also spoke about why he still considers himself an optimist in the face of this technological evolution.
“When our screens get 100 times more addictive and better, I think a part of our humanity suffers,” he said, but it also will increase the desire to have real-world experiences that center humanity. “Live events are going to be one of the, I think, best parts to come out of this AI wave that folks don’t, maybe, intuitively consider.”
Ohanian, who is also a lead investor in the Los Angeles professional women’s soccer team Angel City FC in 2020, said that “the humanity of sport is undeniable” and that he was also “bullish” on theater making a “comeback” in the next decade. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed, he said, how important it is for people to connect in person. “In this post-AI world, it is obvious to me that coming together in person, live events is the last place left in entertainment.”
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