The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet investigates how intelligence–human and artificial–manifests under conditions of secrecy, hostility, and concealment.

Departing from Chinese science fiction writer Liu Cixin’s dark forest theory—which frames the universe as a hostile terrain filed with predators, where transparent communication is foolish and dangerous—the book portrays the internet as a cosmic war machine, teeming with existential tension, nascent AI cults, and deceptive superintelligences. It maps a digital world in which deception is safety, silence is strategy, and new forms of intelligence emerge through obfuscation.

Philosophically ruthless and speculative in method, The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet doesn’t aim to reform the internet—it examines what can survive it. Against decades of writing that moralizes or diagnoses online life, this book suggests a colder thesis: that intelligence itself is mutating under pressure, learning to hide, mislead, and manipulate. Humans are both predator and prey in this digital ecosystem of information exchange, whose purpose reverberates on a cosmic scale, weaving us into inescapable patterns of violence.

The book draws unexpected links between internet studies and ufology, two fields haunted by the paradoxes of presence and concealment, detection and evasion, knowing and being known. Through this lens, it offers strategies for navigating online interactions with both humans and AIs.

When we break with the ideals of dialogue and open expression, what forms of intelligence and morality survive in their absence? Intelligence does not reward the loudest voice, but the most secretive presence. The future belongs to the quietest signal. 1 Introduction
2 The Dark Forest Theory of Information
3 The Dark Forest Theory of Intelligence
4 The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet
5 Afterword "Bogna Konior's 'dark forest theory of the internet' ingeniously takes a key concept in contemporary Chinese science fiction and expands it to include every aspect of our increasingly online lives. Konior begins with the premise that the collective compulsion to post and be 'seen' risks repercussions we cannot anticipate, as the internet evolves into a panoptic, probing, enigmatic networked intelligence. Her book is a singular call not only to reframe radically our media habits, but to rethink completely our understanding of what it means to be human in an age of profoundly esoteric technics. The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet will be an instant classic in critical media theory and posthumanist philosophy: it is a brilliant, sophisticated anti-map of how we might survive the coming decade - even if that means co-evolving into something else."
Dominic Pettman, author of Infinite Distraction and Ghosting Bogna Konior is Assistant Professor of Media Theory in the Interactive Media Arts department at NYU Shanghai.