OpenAI CEO and X enthusiast Sam Altman has commented that social media increasingly feels “fake” as the voices of bots and human users begin to sound indistinguishable from one another.
The comment came on Monday after Altman shared posts from the r/Claudecode subreddit, which had been flooded with praise for OpenAI’s Codex—the company’s programming service launched in May as a competitor to Anthropic’s Claude Code.
Altman noted that the subreddit was so saturated with user testimonies about switching to Codex that one Redditor even joked: “Is it possible to switch to Codex without posting a topic on Reddit?” Reflecting on the trend, Altman admitted that he found himself doubting whether the posts were written by humans at all.
“I assume it’s all fake/bots, even though in this case I know Codex growth is really strong and the trend here is real,” he posted on X.
Real-Time Analysis of the Problem
Altman then broke down his thought process in real time, identifying several contributing factors:
- Many people have adopted the quirks of “LLM-speak.”
- Highly active online communities often move in correlated patterns.
- The technology hype cycle swings between extremes of optimism and pessimism.
- Social media platforms optimize for engagement, while monetization pushes creators to mimic certain styles.
- Past “astroturfing” campaigns by companies have made him more suspicious.
- And, of course, bots likely play a significant role.
The Paradox of Humans Sounding Like Machines
Ironically, Altman’s observation points to a paradox. Humans are now being accused of sounding like the very large language models (LLMs) that OpenAI created to mimic human communication.
This blurring of voices is particularly striking given that OpenAI’s models were trained in part on Reddit data, a platform where Altman himself served as a board member until 2022 and was disclosed as a significant shareholder during Reddit’s IPO last year.
Altman also suggested that social media fandoms, especially among “always-online” users, can drift into echo chambers. These groups, he noted, often swing between enthusiasm and hostility, sometimes devolving into “hatefests.”
Altman’s remarks underscore a growing unease about authenticity in the digital age, where AI, bots, and human behavior intersect in unpredictable ways. As LLMs become more widespread, distinguishing between real and synthetic voices online may only get harder.
