Jason Koebler explores the mental toll of navigating an internet saturated with AI-generated content, coining the term 'Zombie Internet' to describe the complex, exhausting mix of humans, bots, and AI agents interacting online.
# Your AI Use Is Breaking My Brain
Source: [https://simonwillison.net/2026/May/11/zombie-internet/](https://simonwillison.net/2026/May/11/zombie-internet/)
11th May 2026 \- Link Blog
**[Your AI Use Is Breaking My Brain](https://www.404media.co/your-ai-use-is-breaking-my-brain/)**\([via](https://bsky.app/profile/jasonkoebler.bsky.social/post/3mllgvidacs2n)\) Excellent, angry piece by Jason Koebler on how AI writing online is becoming impossible to avoid, filtering it is mentally exhausting and it's even starting to distort regular human writing styles\.
I particularly liked his use of the term "Zombie Internet" to define a different, more insidious alternative to the "Dead Internet" \(which is just bots talking to each other\):
> I called it the Zombie Internet because the truth is that large parts of the internet are not just bots talking to bots or bots talking to people\. It’s people talking to bots, people talking to people, people creating “AI agents” and then instructing them to interact with people\. It’s people using AI talking to people who are not using AI, and it’s people using AI talking to other people who are using AI\. It’s influencer hustlebros who are teaching each other how to make AI influencers and have spun up automated YouTube channels and blogs and social media accounts that are spamming the internet for the sole purpose of making money\. It is whatever the fuck “Moltbook” is and whatever the fuck X and LinkedIn have become\. It’s AI summaries of real books being sold as the book itself and inspirational Reddit posts and comment threads in which people give heartfelt advice to some account that’s actually being run by a marketing firm\. \[\.\.\.\]
A personal essay discusses how heavy use of AI tools leads to cognitive overload and mental fatigue, citing studies from BCG, Wired, and other sources that show AI can increase mental effort and cause skill atrophy.
An opinion piece arguing that widespread use of AI tools like ChatGPT in universities is destroying the educational system and turning students into intellectually unengaged 'zombies.'
The article discusses a new form of burnout caused by AI, where workers experience mental exhaustion from constantly supervising and correcting AI outputs, leading to high cognitive load and context switching.
The article explores the unsettling possibility that much of the online hype and fear around AI is itself generated by AI, blurring the line between authentic human perception and algorithmic narrative shaping.