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AI slop is killing online communities

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Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#161

Post by tardedmeme »

vohk wrote: post #30
carlgreene wrote: post #4

I have largely written Reddit off and no longer visit it after an experiment I did where I had an agent karma farm for me and do some covert advertising. As I went through the posts it wrote I realized that as a reader I would have NO idea that these were just written by a computer. Many many people (or other bots) had full on conversations with it and it scared me a bit. I am not quite there with Hacker News but I d…

I think it's going to effectively kill public chat communities without either proof of identity or attestation through a web of trust. Or rather turn them into little better than comment sections on news sites; thriving but worthless. I'm active in a number of online communities that are doing just fine but the difference is those all involve ongoing relationships, built over time and with engagement across multiple…

Note that "attestation through a web of trust" means something like needing an invite from an existing user. It doesn't have to mean mass surveillance.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#163

Post by tardedmeme »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #151
vohk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's going to effectively kill public chat communities without either proof of identity or attestation through a web of trust. Or rather turn them into little better than comment sections on news sites; thriving but worthless. I'm active in a number of online communities that are doing just fine but the difference is those all involve ongoing relationships, built over time and with engagement across multiple…

>I think it's going to effectively kill public chat communities without either proof of identity How? I have an identity. A state driver's license, birth certificate, social security number. I've even considered getting a federal license before, never bit the bullet. If I wanted to run a bot, what stops me from giving it my identity? How do I prove I'm really me (a "me" exists, that's provable), and not something I'm…

Digital totalitarianism would prevent it. The moment you were found to be running a bot, your identity would be blacklisted across the entire internet.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#165

Post by tardedmeme »

bigyabai wrote: post #104
ubermonkey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think it's going to effectively kill public chat communities without either proof of identity or attestation through a web of trust." Those sorts of places were always the only places with reliably good communities.

To the contrary, platforms like Facebook and X demonstrate that even personal verification won't save you from identity politics.

What is identity politics, is that age verification?

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#166

Post by tardedmeme »

pessimizer wrote: post #119
lbriner wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: If there are so many LLMs on online forums, who is doing it? Is it just 1000s of research students or something more nefarious? Is it AI businesses building up evidence that their output is as highly scored as humans therefore "buy our software"?

If you farm a fleet of good accounts, you control the discourse. On HN, you could boost whatever you're trying to push, and downvote or flagkill whoever objects. There are obvious benefits to controlling public discourse, right? Even if it's just to support some project you're working on.

There are certain topics that seem to get instantly flag-killed unusually often. IPv6 is one.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#167

Post by culebron21 »

Sadly the imperative is, as often, a call to everyone to be good guy and make less noise. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, neither at personal level, nor at global.

One may be quiet, but what if your friend/acquaintance/fellow got possessed by some AI slot machine, and is sharing his "products" enthusiastically? I had such case, and right from the very beginning was dismissive and rude, and it doesn't work -- he keeps sharing various artifacts.

On a global level, yes communities die out. I think, global communication has reached the point when it's more a liability than a benefit. In late '90s and early '00s, maybe until early '10s, getting more connected could lead you to nice clients, getting hired etc. Nowadays, even before ChatGPT 3 in '22, every such area became overcrowded, underbidded, etc, and LLMs, surprisingly, added not much new -- just augmented this trend.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#168

Post by tardedmeme »

JTbane wrote: post #84
carlgreene wrote: post #4

I have largely written Reddit off and no longer visit it after an experiment I did where I had an agent karma farm for me and do some covert advertising. As I went through the posts it wrote I realized that as a reader I would have NO idea that these were just written by a computer. Many many people (or other bots) had full on conversations with it and it scared me a bit. I am not quite there with Hacker News but I d…

Reddit is more or less dead to me, as the popular subs are botfests and the niche subs are empty. I'm lucky to get a single reply on gaming subs.

There's also a third category where the sub looks organic because the moderator deletes and bans anyone who doesn't post exactly what the moderator wants.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#169

Post by Jordan-117 »

nickff wrote: post #146
grey-area wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever introspect about who ruined Reddit?

It’s a tragedy of the commons, many have done it, but no one user did it.

I'd argue that Reddit leadership, which insulted, hobbled, and wrote off its mods and power users (destroying projects like /r/BotDefense) while doing little to crack down on the proliferation of bot repost content, had a major role in encouraging this. They might even like it better this way -- lots of extra fake engagement boosting traffic stats without messy human drama, which they can then ironically sell back to AI labs as training data.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#170

Post by tardedmeme »

echelon wrote: post #142
carlgreene wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used the browser agent to grab user cookies after signing in, then made API calls iirc. Using just a browser is way too token intensive and slow. It would look for 401 errors then run the browser automation to login with the credentials and grab the token.

I'm surprised these platforms don't have advanced heuristics to detect API calls and inauthentic traffic. Did you clone the Reddit API from browser traffic and then turn it into a 100% API driven thing? I'd imagine they'd be sniffing browser agents, plugins, cookies, etc. to fingerprint. Using JavaScript scroll position, browsing rate and patterns, etc. Maybe their protections just aren't that sophisticated.

Reddit is known to fingerprint TLS and quickly shadowban accounts that don't have the fingerprints of browsers.
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