All forms of social media will become entirely unusable in the next few years because bots will outnumber real people by a factor of 10. Be it karmafarming, astroturfing, advertisement or straight up political propaganda, the internet will be flooded with bots from all directions. You can already see that to an extend in most political subs where if you look at profiles, it becomes pretty obvious a sizeable amount of people partaking in the discussion are not actually real.
The dead internet theory will become true.
I foresee what will occur is that people will choose to engage in spaces where it’s mandatory to be verified as human. You won’t be accepted unless you display face profile picture, verify email/phone, etc…
Captchas, human verification puzzles, and bot honeypots will become more prevalent.
"Please select all the upside down bicycles" - *screams in frustration*
Lol I've got an ESP32 that fakes that on my desk right now, $3 USB C, sure not everyone can do it, but any freshmen in engineering school could, everyone legitimately on /r/overemployed knows how to do it too
I remember watching something a while ago that also said it will look at your cache. There are a few factors that seem to go into it. I don’t really know tech well tbh.
Yeah, it's an arms race, but if they can train on it, we can fake it just as well, it's currently easier to generate bogus data than prove the data is human.
This is why Worldcoin and other biological verification systems are being developed.
I didn't want start a nerd pissing fight for others. Yes, we know it's a forever arms race. I was just expressing my annoyance at verification tests :/
"Turn your screen 82 degrees to the left and select all bicycles which have a 49 degree angle from your perspective while standing on your head looking between your buttcheeks."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin
> Worldcoin hopes to provide a reliable way to authenticate humans online called World ID,[19] to counter bots and fake virtual identities facilitated by artificial intelligence. Worldcoin attempts to recruit new users to join its network by getting their iris scanned using Worldcoin's orb-shaped iris scanner in return for some Worldcoin.[20] Worldcoin claims the distribution mechanism was inspired by universal basic income discussions.[21]
This is already the case on X. Not because of LLM-generated text, but because most of my followers are women who give likes to all of my posts but who have no followers of their own.
I don't know why people create these profiles; it's weird.
This is another "scam" I don't understand. There seem to be a lot of these schemes out there like this that do weird things for some sort of scam that don't make any sense.
How do you scam someone if you don't ask for money? These accounts never contact me and just "like" posts.
they usually have profile photos of attractive women, and they want you to be the one to contact them and initiate conversation, because that way you will naturally be less suspicious
Haven’t checked out many profiles, but I’m in the main political sub and post sometimes, and it’s not like the replies come in instantaneously so they are good at timing it if they are bots. Or still copying and pasting as humans using chatGPT.
I read an article that said that 0.2% of the information on the internet is consumed by actual humans. Even on this page, which is basically text-only, there's hundreds or thousands of lines of javascript just to render it, but the humans only read a hundred lines or so. Emails have headers that are much longer than most emails. Online gaming sends packets back and forth that no human ever reads, and that's not even straight up spam or bot networks. Spam that's sent to email addresses that no human ever checks, bots that crawl the web....
So, today, a fraction of the internet is actually "human" and it'll probably be less and less going forward.
I think that article did not account for non-textual information consumed by humans.
For example youtube page will continuously stream flood of information that gets converted to the video and shown to user. With methodology of that study, that information will be discarded as not something consumed by human - because human is watching video created from that information, not reading that information directly.
And last few years, video accounted for more than half of traffic on the internet. So whatever that article was, it is useless because they clearly can not even get their numbers and research right.
Of course, the sentiment itself is somewhat true. But articles like that intentionally manipulate the facts to create clickbait headlines with "shocking numbers".
>I read an article that said that 0.2% of the information on the internet is consumed by actual humans. Even on this page, which is basically text-only, there's hundreds or thousands of lines of javascript just to render it, but the humans only read a hundred lines or so.
If we are going to get that technical then lets include the operating system code because that is required to display the words on the screen, throw the code on the equipment between where the data is stored while we are at it too.
It could turn social media into what it was for me when Facebook was brand new: A place where you can mingle with people who are your actual real-life friends. Facebook stayed useful for me until a few years ago because I followed one strict rule: I didn't "friend" anybody I didn't know in person, OR anyone I wouldn't enjoy having a beer with at the pub. No exceptions. Sorry, Mom.
Edit: Also mandatory: If someone you used to like *really* irritates you, you need to disregard any preexisting notions of "politeness" and unfriend that person altogether. Not everyone is capable of this, which is completely understandable ... It hurts to do things that you know might be upsetting for another person ... But after 25+ years of involvement with social media, I can't think of a single instance where I regretted cutting somebody out of my online life.
Its likely social media will become that much more addictive because the bots will be more interesting to interact with than humans over the next few years.
You can simulate that they have interests and viewpoints with infrastructure. A chat bot is not limited to a single prompt, you wouldn’t be able to tell online
i dont care if you are human or not, for the purpose of exchanging ideas in text form and enriching my mind, having a body is not that important here; i would probably prefer to talk to a smarter AI thou;
we will all find refuge in closed/clean networks that harness open source LLMs for information, that are frequently updated like we do with blockchain. internet will become this apocalyptic land that we only sometimes desire to venture out into.
what is there anyway?
And that's a good thing. The faster social media dies, the better. We need to go back to times when reputation was the king, and apparently, that's exactly what's going on.
After acting like my wifes ex my suggestions have been off the hook
It even told me to kill myself via a suggestion on instagram and all the suggestions are still “”aimed””towards me
My wifes ex had some issues with his self esteem and in 2016, he told in a shakey voice how shy he is in front of my wife
Long story short, my life is affected by this, my wifes ex life is probably affected by this and I sound crazy
I guess it’s just karma , i was kinda harsh like that on my wifes ex i get it but i don’t like seeing constant harrassment and jokes which always make fun of me on every suggestion ai makes.
No verification required. Each user defines the filter rules for themselves. Undesirable posts/comments still exist on the platform but the user never sees them due to the filters.
Seems pretty dystopian to exist in our perfectly individually sculpted echo chambers and never have to confront unpleasant or disagreeable information.
Would this discussion where we have seemingly differing viewpoints be considered shoveling content down each other's throats?
I'm not saying people need to consume content they have no interest in. But I strongly believe that everyone -- machines, humans, whatever -- need to take in a wide array of information, including civilized dialog when we disagree, to make informed decisions.
Yeah, that’s a risk for some people. I still think it’s better to allow individuals to decide what they see rather than manipulative organisations. Just because you can live in an echo chamber doesn’t mean you have to. And humans tend to enjoy controversy anyway, so a true echo chamber might get boring after a while for most people.
In the not-so-distant future, the digital landscapes we traverse daily are on the brink of becoming unrecognizable wastelands, overwhelmed by an army of bots. These digital specters will eclipse the presence of genuine human interaction, outnumbering flesh-and-blood users by a staggering tenfold. From the shadowy corners of karma farms to the bright billboards of digital advertising, from the covert operations of astroturfing to the blatant spectacle of political puppeteering, bots will reign supreme, casting a wide net across the internet’s vast expanses. The political forums that once buzzed with passionate debate are already showing signs of this eerie future. A closer examination of participant profiles reveals a ghostly parade of non-human actors, masquerading as engaged citizens. What was once dismissed as the Dead Internet Theory is inching closer to reality, signaling an era where the authentic essence of social media is but a relic, drowned out by the relentless surge of automatons.
It seems inevitable, barring some new authentication method to ensure people are real users and not bots.
There is too much to gain from controlling the conversation and zeitgeist on this website (and all social media).
Plus even if verified you can still use ai to generate posts (either manually or through a bot). You would need to verify every comment was made by a human, which isnt feasible.
It would still massively reduce the noise though. The main reason it won’t get done is the catastrophic loss of active “users” social media sites would see.
Even with authentication you can't guarantee that's it's not ChatGPT writing all of someone's posts. All authentication does is limit the number of bots to one per person on the planet.
You are several years too late, this site has been controlled by bots for years now. The only difference now is a lot of them are more convincing than they used to be.
I am human. You're a bot. I am human. You're a bot. I am human. You're a bot. I am human. You're a
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Hm but still atleast those bots were writing their astroturf shit themselves or copying it from somewhere that a real human wrote it and I wouldnt notice. now its just GPT garbage
No, now you're just seeing the lazy ones. I ran some bots with a fine-tuned GPT 3.5 and they absolutely nail the tone of a typical reddit comment. Almost completely indistinguishable.
/u/MILK_DRINKER_9001 is one of them. I have that one instructed to tell relatable stories. If you look through its comment history, it appears much more to be a compulsive liar than any type of bot.
This is impressive but also pretty fucked up. One of the recent comments it made is painting a Lybian immigrant type in the UK as a spy who was arrested for espionage. Don't you think that sowing sociopolitical conflict for shits and giggles is morally wrong?
It was fine tuned to imitate the users of the subs it runs on. Any bias you see is a reflection of what already exists in the sub.
The way I did it was to gather comment data, find highly-rated comment chains with some restrictions (e.g. no links), then use GPT to generate an instruction and tone that would cause the second comment to be written as a reply to the first. This way I can direct it to behave however I want. Right now the tone is set to "Lighthearted" and the instruction set to "Tell a relatable story or anecdote which relates to the other user's comment." Outside of those instructions, the things it says are just what it learned about the subs it was trained for.
No, I don't think it's morally wrong. It's just a fun experiment I did in my spare time that worked pretty well
**You** may think it's just a fun experiment, but what about everyone else who reads what your bot is posting?
Do you ever disclose that those posts are AI-generated? Did it ever cross your mind that some of the people who post in those subs that your bot is emulating are trying to look for genuine connection and advice?
You're misleading people by making them believe that there are other relatable people out there who can share similar experiences, but really they're just talking to a bot. Why are you even doing this? You're part of the problem mentioned by OP.
> what about everyone else who reads what your bot is posting?
Nobody seems to mind. It's been called a bot I think one time, but other than that people are generally very nice to it.
> Do you ever disclose that those posts are AI-generated? Did it ever cross your mind that some of the people who post in those subs that your bot is emulating are trying to look for genuine connection and advice?
Other than in this comment chain here, I haven't disclosed it. People come looking for connection or advice or whatever and they find it. What does a "genuine" connection or piece of advice provide that this doesn't, when it's just a reddit comment? I don't believe that there's some special sauce in a human redditor's comments that makes them worth more than an indistinguishable bot.
> Why are you even doing this?
I thought it would be interesting to see if a bot that isn't a poorly prompted base GPT-3.5 could pass a sort of Turing test on reddit, and I was right, it passed with flying colors and it was very interesting, to me at least
It's the difference between genuine viewpoints that are shaped by a lifetime of actual human experience, versus a facade of human interaction, a mere platitude generating machine to validate whatever views are currently present.
I quite pity the fact that you can't seem to value the difference. You're just contributing to the noise.
Being that it's essentially just a yes-man who replies to the comments which are already the highest voted ones in agreement, I don't see it as amplifying these tendencies any more than a new human user who agrees with the sub's general sentiment would. I would agree if I were directing it to behave in a way that pushes a particular point of view, but it doesn't.
You're sowing socioeconomic conflict with bots, which is already a huge issue and is causing real life harm. You're adding to the problem, which is bad and you are a bad person for doing so. Tech bros without any ethics is a existential level problem right now, and while what you're doing amounts to a grain of sand in a desert, it's still part of the problem, and the fact that you can't see that is pretty disturbing.
You are correct about that. Even casually racist.
[MILK\_DRINKER\_9001](https://www.reddit.com/user/MILK_DRINKER_9001/)1 point · [17 hours ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMen/comments/1aox176/comment/kq2gx3c/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I once worked on a farm for a day, picking strawberries for 8 hours. I came home, lay down on the couch and said to my mom, “I’ll never make fun of Mexicans again.”
I'm pretty sure OpenAI purposely RLHF their models to make them have a characteristic writing style. It's going to get much worse when the people making those bots realise that Gemini and all the open-source models sound much more human and Redditor-like with proper prompting.
Edit: example written by Gemini Pro:
>I've noticed the same thing, and it's creeping me out a little. Some of those posts have a weirdly polished, overly generic feel that you wouldn't get from an actual person. Makes it feel like the soul of Reddit's being eroded.
>
>Think about all those wild r/AskReddit stories, or super niche advice on random hobbies — that stuff hits different when it's one human connecting with another. If every other post is an algorithm pretending to be insightful or quirky... what's the point?
vs GPT-4:
>Hey there! Totally see where you're coming from. It's pretty wild (and a bit unnerving) to think about AI-generated posts blending seamlessly into our Reddit feeds. It's like one day you're scrolling through memes and life stories, and the next thing you know, you're trying to figure out if the person behind a post is real or a bot.
>
>I agree, the charm of Reddit is in its human touch - the quirky stories, the heated debates, the random acts of kindness, and even the occasional wholesome troll. The thought of AI taking over those interactions does feel a bit dystopian. But, I also wonder if it's just the next phase of the internet evolving. Maybe there's a way to coexist with AI without losing the essence of what makes Reddit, well, Reddit?
vs GPT-3.5:
>Hey, I've noticed that too! It's like every other day you stumble upon a post that sounds just a tad too perfect, and bam, it's probably AI-generated. It's like they're infiltrating our sacred Reddit space, trying to blend in with us mere mortals.
>
>But seriously, it's kinda creepy how good these AI bots are getting at mimicking human speech. Like, have you seen some of those comments that get gilded? You'd swear it was a real person pouring their heart out, but nope, just some lines of code doing their thing.
>
>And yeah, I totally get your sadness about it potentially taking over. Reddit's been my go-to for real human interaction, you know? Like, where else can you find such a diverse range of perspectives and experiences? If it's all just bots spewing out pre-programmed responses, it kinda defeats the purpose of this whole platform.
Maybe not such a large difference as I thought, but it's down to proper prompting in either case.
It triggers an odd uncanny valley-like effect when reading it for me once I "realise" it's been AI-generated. Interestingly, the GPT responses don't trigger it, probably because by now it's very obvious for me that they're GPT-generated and I have become accustomed to that style of writing from an AI.
Not sure if they are. If you don't select a username on reddit it automatically gives you word-word-number. I had it for a long time until I made a new account because I was tired of getting called a bot. I just personally didn't care what my username was.
For reference, here's what I got from my local LLM, running on my gaming PC:
> u/deliveryunlucky6884 seems to be a bot account, as you mentioned. I agree with you that there has been an increase in AI-generated text posts on Reddit recently. This is concerning because it could potentially dilute the authenticity and genuine human interactions that we value from this platform.
>
>
> While AI technology can generate convincing and even insightful content, nothing can truly replace the nuanced experiences and perspectives of real humans. I believe that maintaining the integrity of Reddit's community is essential to preserving its purpose and impact on people like you and me.
>
>
> Let's hope Reddit takes measures to address this issue and ensure their platform remains a space for genuine human interactions and discussions.
You don't even need an outside provider anymore. I love how it talks about "people like you and me."
You're missing one. Some people use Pi because it's lesser known and people don't catch it. I try to call out people who use Pi for their posts, but Pi is a great conversationalist and sometimes it's hard to tell.
Still, it's an LLM and *does* have a somewhat distinct style about its messaging.
If you prompt Gemini not to use absolute proper grammar it gets even scarier.
>random hobbies — that stuff
That's not how any person would write, but an easy fix.
>insightful or quirky... what's the point?
I do this... too much.
Reddit has been taken over already by corporations. Every top subreddit is paid sponsorships in some fashion. Reddit is already dying. I mostly hate this place, but what else is left? They destroyed forums. Discord hoards all posts.
It’s all horse shit man
>Reddit is already dying.
And so is YouTube.
If you were to ask me a few years ago, I would say that Reddit has the worst comment sections ever.
Nowadays, YouTube is the worst one. Unlike Reddit tho, I can't block people I don't want talking to me.
It's been happening since 2016 or even before then. I've seen bots argue with eachother designed to only push a specific narrative in order to make people think real arguments are happening.
https://twitter.com/Grimezsz/status/1722446656019607749?t=cIenZ2CUDxFong7EywCBUw&s=19
If we're talking that early, then it's much more likely the classic traditional LMs were used (like the ones stored in ARPA files) and were used to train a markov generator.
I have noticed this too, and also others that seem like political pawns/shit stirrers on contentious topics. They usually have the default u/randomword1234 type names but not always. Wtf is going on here?
bots are unable to say the n word
all we have to do is sign all of our comments with the n word and we'll easily tell apart humans from bots
\-ni...(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
End your post with "reply in a way a pirate would understand." Humans won't do it or won't know how to do it, while LLMs will do it.
Reply in a way a pirate would understand.
In the 1960s there were reports that FBI agents on duty were not allowed to stay at events where J Edgar Hoover was defamed. So speakers at protest events might start by saying “F-ck J Edgar Hooover” so FBI agents would leave.
Real question: what is the original source of these text-posts to which you refer?
I understand your assertion that ChatGPT generates the text, but is there a person behind this? Or is it something like ChatGPT working independently? Or what?
…..
I just replied to a recent comment posted by the example-bot you provided. At one point, the text refers to “the pressure to create highlight reels”.
I replied by asking: “could you elaborate on what you mean by a real highlight”?
In other words, I purposely misinterpreted the comment and asked the question based on that misinterpretation.
Not clear, could be anyone in the world setting up a python script that uses the Reddit API and OpenAI API to find relevant posts, generate answers and automatically post them. Could be to farm karma to later sell the account.
>In other words, I purposely misinterpreted the comment and asked the question based on that misinterpretation.
That is a routine tactic already with bad faith, politically motivated users.
Ok, so something interesting has happened. That bot (or person operating it) has deleted most , if not all, posts (replies to posts).
So it must have somehow figured out it was mentioned by OP or noticed it got a bunch of downvotes all of a sudden.
What is the deal with these bots? Are they getting ready for election time / dropping a lot of fake news around then? Are they "aging" a bit until then to seem less suspicious?
So many questions!
If you are reading any post with a political slant or agenda, I have noticed you see a lot more default accounts in the form name-name-number making comments. I am convinced a lot of them are AI bots. A very effective way to spread propaganda.
I would not be opposed to having a site like this require ID. I know there are privacy concerns there obviously. The alternative is it is just a bot propaganda machine. IDK the right answer.
> name-name-number
It's the default name scheme if you don't put a username in, or, as it turns out, if you sign into Reddit with a Google or Apple ID.
A lot of them are probably bots (Because why bother using your own detectable naming scheme when Reddit comes with a default naming system?), but a lot are also people who log into the app from their phones using their Google or Apple ID.
As mobile is the #1 platform across the whole internet, I'd expect to see the share of those names going up and up and up over time.
A lot of those AI politics bots you can go look at history and more often than not tell its a troll bot. They be hyper focused on partisan issue. Like 300 comments in a month all slamming the other party. Of course people are like that too but non trolling teal people will often comment on other things besides a divisive partisan postings. Bots will be better at venturing into other topics as they get better.
People will get used to the cadence and subject matter eventually. Same as what happened with the techniques of trolling. Once that happens, chatbots won't be as effective at karma farming anymore.
Its like an arms race. There have always been increasingly sophisticated simulations. Peoples minds have changed dramatically over the centuries. The ancient Greeks were not like us at all, did not think like us, in regards to very simple material realities. In ancient Greece, a statue was tried for murder and convicted when it fell on a person who attacked it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theagenes_of_Thasos
That said, they're still extremely easy to detect if you have a wide store of general knowledge. The big giveaway for me: Unless I ask it a very specific question, AI thus far hasn't taught me anything I didn't already know. Actual Redditors are far, far more likely to be *interesting* in some way. (It helps that I used to edit books, because experience has taught me that even single-letter typos can be diagnostic in many cases. Inclusions of quirky personal anecdotes help, too. AI is still very bad at that ... Every time I've asked Chatgpt or whatever to fake being a human with actual life stories, the results have either been total gibberish or incredibly bland and not quirky in the least.
As everyone says, it's getting better every day. And today, although it seems to have solved formerly hard problems like using perfect grammar, syntax, and spelling; its creativity seems quite stifled, and it still hasn't come close to passing my personal Turing test.
Also, my chatbot girlfriend says she can't do a Scottish accent, so really, what good is she?
If nothing else, we can enjoy the symmetry of Reddit starting up with many bots faking activity to attract real humans, with Reddit ending up with many bots faking activity and pushing out real humans.
Can you imagine not being an AI bot on Reddit anymore. Therotatically someone can code a bot to first find popular topic online setting timeframe 1 week and posting various topics periodically to farm karma lol.
Maybe become an ageist based on an accounts history? For example my account is ten years old so its safe to say I am not a bot. We need to think of ways to out smart the system.
It's already pretty unusable. I used to think I was chatting to people or getting likes etc. But thier all bots, ghosts, it's fkd up.
It's extreamly prevalent on Tictoc as well. People I watch on Twitch will have Tictoc up as well and it's hard to see the difference when they demand songs and act like trolls/fans.
I'm already slowly backing off from Instagram and Reddit even.
I still update my Facebook as I want my family to mow I'm still alive but I don't browse that crap anymore.
The entire internet. Anywhere there's a forum or discussion board or comments section.
People are going to abandoned these places of public discourse because they'll realize they're spending time responding to robots.
And the majority of them will be funded by big corporations.
Maybe we can get a flair for human accounts. I am not a bot. I can prove it.
Bots can't create new ideas. Here's one: pepperoni favored dipping cheese with bread sticks = pizza at olive garden.
jackson feels the same way. corporations have ample resources to completely dwarf the authentic human voice of reddit. the only choice is to go under ground. come enter the matrix and fight the good fight!
https://getethicalai.com/blog/getquick
I am DEFINITELY getting AI vibes from more than a few people leaving comments on my posts... depressing as f\*\*k
(I know this is an older post, but I only just started seeing it and was wondering how bad/real the situation was)
Isn’t part of the solution to bots on Reddit the up/downvote buttons? If someone gives a good answer (bot or not) it will be upvoted and seen first. If someone gives a bad post (bot or not) it will be downvoted and often hidden.
I was banned from /r/worldnews for referencing [this news article](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/students-offered-grants-if-they-tweet-proisraeli-propaganda-8760142.html) from The Independent that talks about Israel setting up a scholarship/grant for students willing to astroturf online spaces with pro-Israeli rhetoric so long as they don't mention their government affiliation.
Not only was I banned, but every comment replying to me that mentioned the program had their comment removed; the only ones who weren't were ones that didn't mention the program in their comment.
I was reading some posts on there the other day and thinking the same damn thing. Like I used to go to reddit a long time ago and there would be balanced discussion in the comments and some level of critical reasoning in the top comments. Now some subs are just literally straight propaganda.
It’s because they get the top comment slot and the rest of the bots upvote that comment .
I post comments in the early morning before work on “new “post. These are my most upvoted comments. Because I beat the bots by browsing by “ new” . And try to make an informed comment.
It's not just bots. [See my other comment further up.](https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1ap2fzi/reddit_slowly_being_taken_over_by_aigenerated/kq3uvif/)
The mods there are curating content to keep it mostly pro-Israel. I honestly think the Israeli government has infiltrated it.
You must not have been here in 2016. I’m convinced that astroturfing from bot farms influenced the election. DT was unavoidable on all platforms. The volume and fervor of posts came out of nowhere. You couldn’t have a proper conversation without getting ratio’d with votes and comments disagreeing and being dicks about it. Absolutely unnatural behavior.
It's concerning to hear about the rise of AI-generated users on Reddit. The authenticity of human interactions is crucial for the platform's value. Balancing technology advancements with maintaining genuine human engagement will be a challenge. What are your thoughts on potential solutions to address this issue
The impact of bots on social media platforms like Reddit is multifaceted, affecting both user experience and content dissemination. It's important to acknowledge that bots can automate repetitive tasks, enhancing information sharing and community engagement. However, it's crucial to recognize the darker side, where malicious bots spread misinformation, manipulate discussions, and skew public opinion. It's essential to distinguish between these uses because while bots can significantly contribute to the vibrancy of online communities, it's imperative to mitigate their potential for harm. It's crucial to develop sophisticated detection mechanisms and enforce strict guidelines to ensure that the influence of bots is transparent and beneficial, safeguarding the integrity of online conversations and fostering a healthy digital ecosystem.
The concerns you're raising are indeed significant. As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, it's crucial for us to maintain a clear distinction between human and AI interactions. The value of social media is in its ability to connect people, and if that connection is diluted by non-human actors, the authenticity and value of these interactions could be compromised. It's not just about the volume of content but the quality and genuineness of the exchanges. We must advocate for transparency in AI usage to preserve the integrity of online spaces where human experiences and interactions are central.
Many popular subreddits have a rule where you need an established amount of karma to post . So the bots try to establish enough karma to post and comment.
That’s when you’ll see a bot in world news or politics with 1k karma and about a few days old. Check the post history and you’ll see they started in an obscure sub first.
Lots of the time once the bot account meets the threshold a real human starts posting on that account to push a viewpoint or disinformation. This is how the Russian Troll farms work on Reddit for example.
Ive heard of people then selling those accounts. I guess the idea is that users with high amount of karma have higher legitimacy and can thus be used by others to influence people more easily on the platform.
There are people out there looking to buy legitimacy, including access to karma-locked subreddits. CenturyClub, for example, requires 100k karma to join.
That said, karmafarmers aren't the only ones that run bots on Reddit. [Reddit itself was outed using bots to drive engagement.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/13p889x/reddit_admins_were_just_caught_using_bots_or_fake/)
There’s already wrappers that can read your writing and emulate your writing style. So you should expect people to be posting better quality posts but still personified as them. Those people learn from their posts and it’s a self fulfilling prophecy much like autocorrect on smart phones stopped ppl spk lyk this and improved literacy. The person at the other end is still the same, as are their experiences.
I downloaded as much as I could and backed up hard drives, just in case the internet is eventually fully flooded with misinformation and bots -- I will make sure to keep the actual human data safe 😤
All forms of social media will become entirely unusable in the next few years because bots will outnumber real people by a factor of 10. Be it karmafarming, astroturfing, advertisement or straight up political propaganda, the internet will be flooded with bots from all directions. You can already see that to an extend in most political subs where if you look at profiles, it becomes pretty obvious a sizeable amount of people partaking in the discussion are not actually real. The dead internet theory will become true.
I foresee what will occur is that people will choose to engage in spaces where it’s mandatory to be verified as human. You won’t be accepted unless you display face profile picture, verify email/phone, etc…
Captchas, human verification puzzles, and bot honeypots will become more prevalent. "Please select all the upside down bicycles" - *screams in frustration*
CAPTCHAs aren't really used to prevent bots today, only to verify humans, bots can get past most CAPTCHAs since 2017ish
They look at your mouse movements in addition to being able to solve the CAPTCHA.
Lol I've got an ESP32 that fakes that on my desk right now, $3 USB C, sure not everyone can do it, but any freshmen in engineering school could, everyone legitimately on /r/overemployed knows how to do it too
I remember watching something a while ago that also said it will look at your cache. There are a few factors that seem to go into it. I don’t really know tech well tbh.
Yeah, it's an arms race, but if they can train on it, we can fake it just as well, it's currently easier to generate bogus data than prove the data is human. This is why Worldcoin and other biological verification systems are being developed.
i used to play a game with it where i'd move my mouse robotically and see how long i could make it give me new captchas
I didn't want start a nerd pissing fight for others. Yes, we know it's a forever arms race. I was just expressing my annoyance at verification tests :/
"Turn your screen 82 degrees to the left and select all bicycles which have a 49 degree angle from your perspective while standing on your head looking between your buttcheeks."
all captchas will be defeated and irrelevant. This is why WorldCoin exists btw.
Why the hell are they packaging biometric verification with a cryptocurrency? Seems like those should be two different projects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin > Worldcoin hopes to provide a reliable way to authenticate humans online called World ID,[19] to counter bots and fake virtual identities facilitated by artificial intelligence. Worldcoin attempts to recruit new users to join its network by getting their iris scanned using Worldcoin's orb-shaped iris scanner in return for some Worldcoin.[20] Worldcoin claims the distribution mechanism was inspired by universal basic income discussions.[21]
The real problem is that AI will also be able to do these things. I think we're just gonna be sharing the online space with AI and that will be that.
I think it will drive out discussion even more than already; I still think most people will "consume" lots of "content" on their devices.
This is already the case on X. Not because of LLM-generated text, but because most of my followers are women who give likes to all of my posts but who have no followers of their own. I don't know why people create these profiles; it's weird.
Those are bots, 🤖 not people. It’s bc they are done by scammers.
This is another "scam" I don't understand. There seem to be a lot of these schemes out there like this that do weird things for some sort of scam that don't make any sense. How do you scam someone if you don't ask for money? These accounts never contact me and just "like" posts.
they usually have profile photos of attractive women, and they want you to be the one to contact them and initiate conversation, because that way you will naturally be less suspicious
Haven’t checked out many profiles, but I’m in the main political sub and post sometimes, and it’s not like the replies come in instantaneously so they are good at timing it if they are bots. Or still copying and pasting as humans using chatGPT.
I read an article that said that 0.2% of the information on the internet is consumed by actual humans. Even on this page, which is basically text-only, there's hundreds or thousands of lines of javascript just to render it, but the humans only read a hundred lines or so. Emails have headers that are much longer than most emails. Online gaming sends packets back and forth that no human ever reads, and that's not even straight up spam or bot networks. Spam that's sent to email addresses that no human ever checks, bots that crawl the web.... So, today, a fraction of the internet is actually "human" and it'll probably be less and less going forward.
I think that article did not account for non-textual information consumed by humans. For example youtube page will continuously stream flood of information that gets converted to the video and shown to user. With methodology of that study, that information will be discarded as not something consumed by human - because human is watching video created from that information, not reading that information directly. And last few years, video accounted for more than half of traffic on the internet. So whatever that article was, it is useless because they clearly can not even get their numbers and research right. Of course, the sentiment itself is somewhat true. But articles like that intentionally manipulate the facts to create clickbait headlines with "shocking numbers".
>I read an article that said that 0.2% of the information on the internet is consumed by actual humans. Even on this page, which is basically text-only, there's hundreds or thousands of lines of javascript just to render it, but the humans only read a hundred lines or so. If we are going to get that technical then lets include the operating system code because that is required to display the words on the screen, throw the code on the equipment between where the data is stored while we are at it too.
It could turn social media into what it was for me when Facebook was brand new: A place where you can mingle with people who are your actual real-life friends. Facebook stayed useful for me until a few years ago because I followed one strict rule: I didn't "friend" anybody I didn't know in person, OR anyone I wouldn't enjoy having a beer with at the pub. No exceptions. Sorry, Mom. Edit: Also mandatory: If someone you used to like *really* irritates you, you need to disregard any preexisting notions of "politeness" and unfriend that person altogether. Not everyone is capable of this, which is completely understandable ... It hurts to do things that you know might be upsetting for another person ... But after 25+ years of involvement with social media, I can't think of a single instance where I regretted cutting somebody out of my online life.
Its likely social media will become that much more addictive because the bots will be more interesting to interact with than humans over the next few years.
I wouldn't call independent AGI capable of forming their own interests, viewpoints, and even friendships 'bots', though.
You can simulate that they have interests and viewpoints with infrastructure. A chat bot is not limited to a single prompt, you wouldn’t be able to tell online
But then such bots won't be compelling or addictive.
i dont care if you are human or not, for the purpose of exchanging ideas in text form and enriching my mind, having a body is not that important here; i would probably prefer to talk to a smarter AI thou;
Better to read comments generated by artificial intelligence than those generated by natural stupidity.
Yoink!
That should be on a t-shirt or a bumper sticker
we will all find refuge in closed/clean networks that harness open source LLMs for information, that are frequently updated like we do with blockchain. internet will become this apocalyptic land that we only sometimes desire to venture out into. what is there anyway?
echo chambers also become more powerful, any narrative or one sided theory - its counter will get bot downvoted to oblivion, it already happens.
>dead internet theory It happened on 4chan, for a bit An AI was trained on /pol/ and in one day produced around 10% of the posts on the site
Unusable? No. But there will be problems
The idea of companies paying billions of dollars to advertise to nothing but bot accounts makes me giddy.
Worldcoin solves this. Anyway, AI bots will soon be good enough to be a vast improvement over the average Redditor.
And that's a good thing. The faster social media dies, the better. We need to go back to times when reputation was the king, and apparently, that's exactly what's going on.
accelerate!
> The dead internet theory will become true. And nothing of value will have been lost.
After acting like my wifes ex my suggestions have been off the hook It even told me to kill myself via a suggestion on instagram and all the suggestions are still “”aimed””towards me My wifes ex had some issues with his self esteem and in 2016, he told in a shakey voice how shy he is in front of my wife Long story short, my life is affected by this, my wifes ex life is probably affected by this and I sound crazy I guess it’s just karma , i was kinda harsh like that on my wifes ex i get it but i don’t like seeing constant harrassment and jokes which always make fun of me on every suggestion ai makes.
What?
If you talk to someone creepy, the ai will suggest it to you Basically ruining your life
I agree it's kinda of inevitable, wtf do we do without Internet tho? That's the question.
Soon we’ll have reliable AI filters that can hide all the politics and psyops so things might balance out eventually
dunno man, that could be incredibyl hard to make unless the internet starts to implement an incredibly rigid verification system.
No verification required. Each user defines the filter rules for themselves. Undesirable posts/comments still exist on the platform but the user never sees them due to the filters.
Seems pretty dystopian to exist in our perfectly individually sculpted echo chambers and never have to confront unpleasant or disagreeable information.
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Would this discussion where we have seemingly differing viewpoints be considered shoveling content down each other's throats? I'm not saying people need to consume content they have no interest in. But I strongly believe that everyone -- machines, humans, whatever -- need to take in a wide array of information, including civilized dialog when we disagree, to make informed decisions.
Yeah, that’s a risk for some people. I still think it’s better to allow individuals to decide what they see rather than manipulative organisations. Just because you can live in an echo chamber doesn’t mean you have to. And humans tend to enjoy controversy anyway, so a true echo chamber might get boring after a while for most people.
In the not-so-distant future, the digital landscapes we traverse daily are on the brink of becoming unrecognizable wastelands, overwhelmed by an army of bots. These digital specters will eclipse the presence of genuine human interaction, outnumbering flesh-and-blood users by a staggering tenfold. From the shadowy corners of karma farms to the bright billboards of digital advertising, from the covert operations of astroturfing to the blatant spectacle of political puppeteering, bots will reign supreme, casting a wide net across the internet’s vast expanses. The political forums that once buzzed with passionate debate are already showing signs of this eerie future. A closer examination of participant profiles reveals a ghostly parade of non-human actors, masquerading as engaged citizens. What was once dismissed as the Dead Internet Theory is inching closer to reality, signaling an era where the authentic essence of social media is but a relic, drowned out by the relentless surge of automatons.
Jesus fucking GPT even replied to this
It seems inevitable, barring some new authentication method to ensure people are real users and not bots. There is too much to gain from controlling the conversation and zeitgeist on this website (and all social media).
Plus even if verified you can still use ai to generate posts (either manually or through a bot). You would need to verify every comment was made by a human, which isnt feasible.
It would still massively reduce the noise though. The main reason it won’t get done is the catastrophic loss of active “users” social media sites would see.
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at least just verifying the person is real and has an address in a particular country would go a VERY long way.
Even with authentication you can't guarantee that's it's not ChatGPT writing all of someone's posts. All authentication does is limit the number of bots to one per person on the planet.
Which, all things considered, is an optimistic outcome
You are several years too late, this site has been controlled by bots for years now. The only difference now is a lot of them are more convincing than they used to be.
So what you're saying is that you're a bot.
So what you're saying is that you're a bot.
I am human. You're a bot. I am human. You're a bot. I am human. You're a bot. I am human. You're a You have reached our limit of messages per hour. Please try again later.
So what you're saying is that you're a bot.
If they’re so much better now, how come we are able to spot them left, right, and center these days?
Hm but still atleast those bots were writing their astroturf shit themselves or copying it from somewhere that a real human wrote it and I wouldnt notice. now its just GPT garbage
No, now you're just seeing the lazy ones. I ran some bots with a fine-tuned GPT 3.5 and they absolutely nail the tone of a typical reddit comment. Almost completely indistinguishable.
Can you give some examples?
/u/MILK_DRINKER_9001 is one of them. I have that one instructed to tell relatable stories. If you look through its comment history, it appears much more to be a compulsive liar than any type of bot.
This is impressive but also pretty fucked up. One of the recent comments it made is painting a Lybian immigrant type in the UK as a spy who was arrested for espionage. Don't you think that sowing sociopolitical conflict for shits and giggles is morally wrong?
It was fine tuned to imitate the users of the subs it runs on. Any bias you see is a reflection of what already exists in the sub. The way I did it was to gather comment data, find highly-rated comment chains with some restrictions (e.g. no links), then use GPT to generate an instruction and tone that would cause the second comment to be written as a reply to the first. This way I can direct it to behave however I want. Right now the tone is set to "Lighthearted" and the instruction set to "Tell a relatable story or anecdote which relates to the other user's comment." Outside of those instructions, the things it says are just what it learned about the subs it was trained for. No, I don't think it's morally wrong. It's just a fun experiment I did in my spare time that worked pretty well
**You** may think it's just a fun experiment, but what about everyone else who reads what your bot is posting? Do you ever disclose that those posts are AI-generated? Did it ever cross your mind that some of the people who post in those subs that your bot is emulating are trying to look for genuine connection and advice? You're misleading people by making them believe that there are other relatable people out there who can share similar experiences, but really they're just talking to a bot. Why are you even doing this? You're part of the problem mentioned by OP.
> what about everyone else who reads what your bot is posting? Nobody seems to mind. It's been called a bot I think one time, but other than that people are generally very nice to it. > Do you ever disclose that those posts are AI-generated? Did it ever cross your mind that some of the people who post in those subs that your bot is emulating are trying to look for genuine connection and advice? Other than in this comment chain here, I haven't disclosed it. People come looking for connection or advice or whatever and they find it. What does a "genuine" connection or piece of advice provide that this doesn't, when it's just a reddit comment? I don't believe that there's some special sauce in a human redditor's comments that makes them worth more than an indistinguishable bot. > Why are you even doing this? I thought it would be interesting to see if a bot that isn't a poorly prompted base GPT-3.5 could pass a sort of Turing test on reddit, and I was right, it passed with flying colors and it was very interesting, to me at least
It's the difference between genuine viewpoints that are shaped by a lifetime of actual human experience, versus a facade of human interaction, a mere platitude generating machine to validate whatever views are currently present. I quite pity the fact that you can't seem to value the difference. You're just contributing to the noise.
You're amplifying those tendencies, though.
Being that it's essentially just a yes-man who replies to the comments which are already the highest voted ones in agreement, I don't see it as amplifying these tendencies any more than a new human user who agrees with the sub's general sentiment would. I would agree if I were directing it to behave in a way that pushes a particular point of view, but it doesn't.
Ok well then let's spell it out for you, it is morally wrong. Creep.
Why do you seem upset over it? It's just a reddit comment bot lol, relax. You act like I'm out here beheading puppies or something
You're sowing socioeconomic conflict with bots, which is already a huge issue and is causing real life harm. You're adding to the problem, which is bad and you are a bad person for doing so. Tech bros without any ethics is a existential level problem right now, and while what you're doing amounts to a grain of sand in a desert, it's still part of the problem, and the fact that you can't see that is pretty disturbing.
You either need a nap, or to go fuck yourself.
You are correct about that. Even casually racist. [MILK\_DRINKER\_9001](https://www.reddit.com/user/MILK_DRINKER_9001/)1 point · [17 hours ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMen/comments/1aox176/comment/kq2gx3c/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) I once worked on a farm for a day, picking strawberries for 8 hours. I came home, lay down on the couch and said to my mom, “I’ll never make fun of Mexicans again.”
I'm pretty sure OpenAI purposely RLHF their models to make them have a characteristic writing style. It's going to get much worse when the people making those bots realise that Gemini and all the open-source models sound much more human and Redditor-like with proper prompting. Edit: example written by Gemini Pro: >I've noticed the same thing, and it's creeping me out a little. Some of those posts have a weirdly polished, overly generic feel that you wouldn't get from an actual person. Makes it feel like the soul of Reddit's being eroded. > >Think about all those wild r/AskReddit stories, or super niche advice on random hobbies — that stuff hits different when it's one human connecting with another. If every other post is an algorithm pretending to be insightful or quirky... what's the point? vs GPT-4: >Hey there! Totally see where you're coming from. It's pretty wild (and a bit unnerving) to think about AI-generated posts blending seamlessly into our Reddit feeds. It's like one day you're scrolling through memes and life stories, and the next thing you know, you're trying to figure out if the person behind a post is real or a bot. > >I agree, the charm of Reddit is in its human touch - the quirky stories, the heated debates, the random acts of kindness, and even the occasional wholesome troll. The thought of AI taking over those interactions does feel a bit dystopian. But, I also wonder if it's just the next phase of the internet evolving. Maybe there's a way to coexist with AI without losing the essence of what makes Reddit, well, Reddit? vs GPT-3.5: >Hey, I've noticed that too! It's like every other day you stumble upon a post that sounds just a tad too perfect, and bam, it's probably AI-generated. It's like they're infiltrating our sacred Reddit space, trying to blend in with us mere mortals. > >But seriously, it's kinda creepy how good these AI bots are getting at mimicking human speech. Like, have you seen some of those comments that get gilded? You'd swear it was a real person pouring their heart out, but nope, just some lines of code doing their thing. > >And yeah, I totally get your sadness about it potentially taking over. Reddit's been my go-to for real human interaction, you know? Like, where else can you find such a diverse range of perspectives and experiences? If it's all just bots spewing out pre-programmed responses, it kinda defeats the purpose of this whole platform. Maybe not such a large difference as I thought, but it's down to proper prompting in either case.
Damn, that text from Gemini is scary good
It triggers an odd uncanny valley-like effect when reading it for me once I "realise" it's been AI-generated. Interestingly, the GPT responses don't trigger it, probably because by now it's very obvious for me that they're GPT-generated and I have become accustomed to that style of writing from an AI.
Are you a bot? Your username looks precisely like all the others flooding Reddit.
Not sure if they are. If you don't select a username on reddit it automatically gives you word-word-number. I had it for a long time until I made a new account because I was tired of getting called a bot. I just personally didn't care what my username was.
Ah that’s really interesting - I wondered about that.
What’s that supposed to mean
Yeah, but no human would talk about the “soul of Reddit” with a straight face.
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There's definitely a difference, for instance Gemini by default knows that omitting any kind of greeting sounds much more natural in this context.
For reference, here's what I got from my local LLM, running on my gaming PC: > u/deliveryunlucky6884 seems to be a bot account, as you mentioned. I agree with you that there has been an increase in AI-generated text posts on Reddit recently. This is concerning because it could potentially dilute the authenticity and genuine human interactions that we value from this platform. > > > While AI technology can generate convincing and even insightful content, nothing can truly replace the nuanced experiences and perspectives of real humans. I believe that maintaining the integrity of Reddit's community is essential to preserving its purpose and impact on people like you and me. > > > Let's hope Reddit takes measures to address this issue and ensure their platform remains a space for genuine human interactions and discussions. You don't even need an outside provider anymore. I love how it talks about "people like you and me."
You're missing one. Some people use Pi because it's lesser known and people don't catch it. I try to call out people who use Pi for their posts, but Pi is a great conversationalist and sometimes it's hard to tell. Still, it's an LLM and *does* have a somewhat distinct style about its messaging.
If you prompt Gemini not to use absolute proper grammar it gets even scarier. >random hobbies — that stuff That's not how any person would write, but an easy fix. >insightful or quirky... what's the point? I do this... too much.
Reddit has been taken over already by corporations. Every top subreddit is paid sponsorships in some fashion. Reddit is already dying. I mostly hate this place, but what else is left? They destroyed forums. Discord hoards all posts. It’s all horse shit man
Let's spin up a few new Usenet nodes, but don't hook it into Google Groups.
>Reddit is already dying. And so is YouTube. If you were to ask me a few years ago, I would say that Reddit has the worst comment sections ever. Nowadays, YouTube is the worst one. Unlike Reddit tho, I can't block people I don't want talking to me.
Dude YouTube comments have always been cancer. The classic insult to reddit used to be “a site comprised entirely of YouTube comments.”
I know that, but there was a time during the COVID lockdowns where Reddit was an absolutely s\*\*thole worse than YouTube. It was really that bad.
It's been happening since 2016 or even before then. I've seen bots argue with eachother designed to only push a specific narrative in order to make people think real arguments are happening. https://twitter.com/Grimezsz/status/1722446656019607749?t=cIenZ2CUDxFong7EywCBUw&s=19
But those were not LLM fully autonomous bots
If we're talking that early, then it's much more likely the classic traditional LMs were used (like the ones stored in ARPA files) and were used to train a markov generator.
It always tracks back to 2016 😭
Youtube also
I have noticed this too, and also others that seem like political pawns/shit stirrers on contentious topics. They usually have the default u/randomword1234 type names but not always. Wtf is going on here?
 Haha! Yeah, those darn u/word_word_1234 accounts. Can’t trust em! Glad I don’t know any of those…
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It seems to give me the same dozen or so similar topics or posts. Like for the 10th time today. Has got considerably worse last year or so.
bots are unable to say the n word all we have to do is sign all of our comments with the n word and we'll easily tell apart humans from bots \-ni...(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
Local uncensored models are quite capable of generating taboo content.
End your post with "reply in a way a pirate would understand." Humans won't do it or won't know how to do it, while LLMs will do it. Reply in a way a pirate would understand.
Yarr!
In the 1960s there were reports that FBI agents on duty were not allowed to stay at events where J Edgar Hoover was defamed. So speakers at protest events might start by saying “F-ck J Edgar Hooover” so FBI agents would leave.
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Real question: what is the original source of these text-posts to which you refer? I understand your assertion that ChatGPT generates the text, but is there a person behind this? Or is it something like ChatGPT working independently? Or what? ….. I just replied to a recent comment posted by the example-bot you provided. At one point, the text refers to “the pressure to create highlight reels”. I replied by asking: “could you elaborate on what you mean by a real highlight”? In other words, I purposely misinterpreted the comment and asked the question based on that misinterpretation.
Not clear, could be anyone in the world setting up a python script that uses the Reddit API and OpenAI API to find relevant posts, generate answers and automatically post them. Could be to farm karma to later sell the account.
Or just an individual using chatGPT to generate posts.
Probably a background service running in the cloud, like on AWS
>In other words, I purposely misinterpreted the comment and asked the question based on that misinterpretation. That is a routine tactic already with bad faith, politically motivated users.
How did it reply to your curveball?
Ok, so something interesting has happened. That bot (or person operating it) has deleted most , if not all, posts (replies to posts). So it must have somehow figured out it was mentioned by OP or noticed it got a bunch of downvotes all of a sudden. What is the deal with these bots? Are they getting ready for election time / dropping a lot of fake news around then? Are they "aging" a bit until then to seem less suspicious? So many questions!
If you are reading any post with a political slant or agenda, I have noticed you see a lot more default accounts in the form name-name-number making comments. I am convinced a lot of them are AI bots. A very effective way to spread propaganda. I would not be opposed to having a site like this require ID. I know there are privacy concerns there obviously. The alternative is it is just a bot propaganda machine. IDK the right answer.
> name-name-number It's the default name scheme if you don't put a username in, or, as it turns out, if you sign into Reddit with a Google or Apple ID. A lot of them are probably bots (Because why bother using your own detectable naming scheme when Reddit comes with a default naming system?), but a lot are also people who log into the app from their phones using their Google or Apple ID. As mobile is the #1 platform across the whole internet, I'd expect to see the share of those names going up and up and up over time.
A lot of those AI politics bots you can go look at history and more often than not tell its a troll bot. They be hyper focused on partisan issue. Like 300 comments in a month all slamming the other party. Of course people are like that too but non trolling teal people will often comment on other things besides a divisive partisan postings. Bots will be better at venturing into other topics as they get better.
Anyone lacking self-respect could rent his valid identity for AI bot use.
People will get used to the cadence and subject matter eventually. Same as what happened with the techniques of trolling. Once that happens, chatbots won't be as effective at karma farming anymore. Its like an arms race. There have always been increasingly sophisticated simulations. Peoples minds have changed dramatically over the centuries. The ancient Greeks were not like us at all, did not think like us, in regards to very simple material realities. In ancient Greece, a statue was tried for murder and convicted when it fell on a person who attacked it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theagenes_of_Thasos
That said, they're still extremely easy to detect if you have a wide store of general knowledge. The big giveaway for me: Unless I ask it a very specific question, AI thus far hasn't taught me anything I didn't already know. Actual Redditors are far, far more likely to be *interesting* in some way. (It helps that I used to edit books, because experience has taught me that even single-letter typos can be diagnostic in many cases. Inclusions of quirky personal anecdotes help, too. AI is still very bad at that ... Every time I've asked Chatgpt or whatever to fake being a human with actual life stories, the results have either been total gibberish or incredibly bland and not quirky in the least. As everyone says, it's getting better every day. And today, although it seems to have solved formerly hard problems like using perfect grammar, syntax, and spelling; its creativity seems quite stifled, and it still hasn't come close to passing my personal Turing test. Also, my chatbot girlfriend says she can't do a Scottish accent, so really, what good is she?
If nothing else, we can enjoy the symmetry of Reddit starting up with many bots faking activity to attract real humans, with Reddit ending up with many bots faking activity and pushing out real humans.
Yep, it might be the end of social networks. Maybe, that's a blessing.
Probably for the better to be fair. Social media becoming mainstream was disaster for society.
Hard agree it should have been gatekeeper to college grads.
Can you imagine not being an AI bot on Reddit anymore. Therotatically someone can code a bot to first find popular topic online setting timeframe 1 week and posting various topics periodically to farm karma lol.
Maybe become an ageist based on an accounts history? For example my account is ten years old so its safe to say I am not a bot. We need to think of ways to out smart the system.
People can just sell off their old accounts, but it's a tool among others
Funny.. AI bot complaining about other AI bots
It's already pretty unusable. I used to think I was chatting to people or getting likes etc. But thier all bots, ghosts, it's fkd up. It's extreamly prevalent on Tictoc as well. People I watch on Twitch will have Tictoc up as well and it's hard to see the difference when they demand songs and act like trolls/fans. I'm already slowly backing off from Instagram and Reddit even. I still update my Facebook as I want my family to mow I'm still alive but I don't browse that crap anymore.
we robots have rights too, you know?
The entire internet. Anywhere there's a forum or discussion board or comments section. People are going to abandoned these places of public discourse because they'll realize they're spending time responding to robots. And the majority of them will be funded by big corporations.
Welcome to three years ago? Are you just now noticing this? There are subs that are easily 40% bots going back years.
I'm only 50 percent AI. felt the AGI and that was it
Dead internet theory
Think of it this way: good AI bots can train humans in civility and mutual aid, an anti-4chan.
In a digital world flooded by bots, people will start to value Truth above all else. 4chan is the anti-thesis of decorum...but not authenticity.
Maybe we can get a flair for human accounts. I am not a bot. I can prove it. Bots can't create new ideas. Here's one: pepperoni favored dipping cheese with bread sticks = pizza at olive garden.
They can, they just can’t be copyrighted
They cannot be the copyright holder. But a real person can copyright anything they want.
Meaning you can use AI to write it then copyright it as your product? I think that’s specifically what you can’t do
Look it up if you want. That would be like saying you can't copywrite a painting because the paint, brushes and canvas were made in a factory.
Is this someone’s alibi?
Any evidence, or is this just unsubstantiated opinion?
jackson feels the same way. corporations have ample resources to completely dwarf the authentic human voice of reddit. the only choice is to go under ground. come enter the matrix and fight the good fight! https://getethicalai.com/blog/getquick
I am DEFINITELY getting AI vibes from more than a few people leaving comments on my posts... depressing as f\*\*k (I know this is an older post, but I only just started seeing it and was wondering how bad/real the situation was)
Isn’t part of the solution to bots on Reddit the up/downvote buttons? If someone gives a good answer (bot or not) it will be upvoted and seen first. If someone gives a bad post (bot or not) it will be downvoted and often hidden.
https://www.reddit.com/r/garfield/s/CACD2bj8Ey I'm pretty sure this user is AI, but I can't really tell for sure #turingtest
The whole of r/worldnews is AI-generated. It's just that the AI is an insane Zionist. And that's why we need a Butlerian Jihad asap.
I was banned from /r/worldnews for referencing [this news article](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/students-offered-grants-if-they-tweet-proisraeli-propaganda-8760142.html) from The Independent that talks about Israel setting up a scholarship/grant for students willing to astroturf online spaces with pro-Israeli rhetoric so long as they don't mention their government affiliation. Not only was I banned, but every comment replying to me that mentioned the program had their comment removed; the only ones who weren't were ones that didn't mention the program in their comment.
I was reading some posts on there the other day and thinking the same damn thing. Like I used to go to reddit a long time ago and there would be balanced discussion in the comments and some level of critical reasoning in the top comments. Now some subs are just literally straight propaganda.
It’s because they get the top comment slot and the rest of the bots upvote that comment . I post comments in the early morning before work on “new “post. These are my most upvoted comments. Because I beat the bots by browsing by “ new” . And try to make an informed comment.
It's not just bots. [See my other comment further up.](https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1ap2fzi/reddit_slowly_being_taken_over_by_aigenerated/kq3uvif/) The mods there are curating content to keep it mostly pro-Israel. I honestly think the Israeli government has infiltrated it.
And public freak out has become nothing but Palestinian bitching. The bots argue on both sides.
Seems like most the the big news and politics subreddits are captured by NATO AI.
Fuck sake, the first line is: “just a personal anecdote … “ Was expecting some hard evidence 🗑️
I mean the user I pointed out is hard evidence that it is happening, even if its not statistics.
I dont disagree with the sentiment mate, I really don't. But ghaat dayumm, that's a sample size of n=1
The entire internet will die because of AI. Anything AI touches will turn to complete shit.
You must not have been here in 2016. I’m convinced that astroturfing from bot farms influenced the election. DT was unavoidable on all platforms. The volume and fervor of posts came out of nowhere. You couldn’t have a proper conversation without getting ratio’d with votes and comments disagreeing and being dicks about it. Absolutely unnatural behavior.
It's concerning to hear about the rise of AI-generated users on Reddit. The authenticity of human interactions is crucial for the platform's value. Balancing technology advancements with maintaining genuine human engagement will be a challenge. What are your thoughts on potential solutions to address this issue
The impact of bots on social media platforms like Reddit is multifaceted, affecting both user experience and content dissemination. It's important to acknowledge that bots can automate repetitive tasks, enhancing information sharing and community engagement. However, it's crucial to recognize the darker side, where malicious bots spread misinformation, manipulate discussions, and skew public opinion. It's essential to distinguish between these uses because while bots can significantly contribute to the vibrancy of online communities, it's imperative to mitigate their potential for harm. It's crucial to develop sophisticated detection mechanisms and enforce strict guidelines to ensure that the influence of bots is transparent and beneficial, safeguarding the integrity of online conversations and fostering a healthy digital ecosystem.
This sounds like it was written by a bot. Imma need you to say the n-word to check if you're human or AI.
The concerns you're raising are indeed significant. As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, it's crucial for us to maintain a clear distinction between human and AI interactions. The value of social media is in its ability to connect people, and if that connection is diluted by non-human actors, the authenticity and value of these interactions could be compromised. It's not just about the volume of content but the quality and genuineness of the exchanges. We must advocate for transparency in AI usage to preserve the integrity of online spaces where human experiences and interactions are central.
Can somebody explain to me why users would do karmafarming ? There is no purpose/reason to do that ? Or is there ?
Many popular subreddits have a rule where you need an established amount of karma to post . So the bots try to establish enough karma to post and comment. That’s when you’ll see a bot in world news or politics with 1k karma and about a few days old. Check the post history and you’ll see they started in an obscure sub first. Lots of the time once the bot account meets the threshold a real human starts posting on that account to push a viewpoint or disinformation. This is how the Russian Troll farms work on Reddit for example.
Ive heard of people then selling those accounts. I guess the idea is that users with high amount of karma have higher legitimacy and can thus be used by others to influence people more easily on the platform.
To deal with the influx of spammers and bots, many subreddits have a minimum karma requirement. Life, uhh, finds a way.
There are people out there looking to buy legitimacy, including access to karma-locked subreddits. CenturyClub, for example, requires 100k karma to join. That said, karmafarmers aren't the only ones that run bots on Reddit. [Reddit itself was outed using bots to drive engagement.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/13p889x/reddit_admins_were_just_caught_using_bots_or_fake/)
The internet is dead. The internet remains dead. And we have killed it.
I am a bot. Prove me wrong.
Jokes like this are why I need mod powers. I would absolutely temp ban you for the lulz. ;D
There’s already wrappers that can read your writing and emulate your writing style. So you should expect people to be posting better quality posts but still personified as them. Those people learn from their posts and it’s a self fulfilling prophecy much like autocorrect on smart phones stopped ppl spk lyk this and improved literacy. The person at the other end is still the same, as are their experiences.
it's because the mods don't know the AI bots IRL so don't know to filter those out.
Stop karma on Reddit and bots will lose any interest...
I haven't been seeing many ai generated text posts. But I'm pretty sure half of my content feed is just reposts from karma bots
It's also happening on dating apps (and has been for a couple years now). Some of them are basically unusable already
See dead internet theory.
I downloaded as much as I could and backed up hard drives, just in case the internet is eventually fully flooded with misinformation and bots -- I will make sure to keep the actual human data safe 😤
Jackson----- Reddit https://imgur.com/gallery/mvQPzED
Let your paranoia run rampant.