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AI slop is killing online communities

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Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#431

Post by wussboy »

plumbline wrote: post #427
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…

This is actually my hope for AI-gen content as well. That after it gets so 'good' that people genuinely can't distinguish it from reality anymore that they'll retreat (or return triumphantly rather) to the physical world to gather truthful fulfilling experiences and dopamine.

My hope as well. If AI doesn't kill us all, the real world, with all its dirt and grime and beauty, will become the only thing that can be trusted

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#432

Post by marcus_holmes »

nicbou wrote: post #327
tardedmeme wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then how can you have a community that is welcoming to people who are not part of the ingroup? I want to create a community for immigrants. How would I make it welcoming to recent immigrants for whom no one can vouch? A web of trust is a wonderful tool, but it's exclusive by design. This is a problem for some communities, even though it makes others much better.

You'd have to be brutal about culling, uninviting and removing anyone who doesn't look like a good fit.

Or have a two-stage process: run very public, very open events that anyone can sign up to an attend. And then invite specific people that you meet at those events that look like a good fit for your community to your private, community-only event.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#434

Post by octoberfranklin »

sgarman wrote: post #301
JTbane wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The fact that reddit enabled hiding your posts is crazy to me. In a time where knowing who's engaging in a community is more important than ever (am I talking to a bot or a troll?) reddit removes even more options to validate.

The problem is that it has become very popular to ban people from a sub based on what other subs they post to. It was turning Reddit into a two-party universe.

The better fix would be to make the support for multiple accounts in the reddit app not so incredibly-shitty, where you're basically logging out and logging back in. Instead, just tell it "posts to this sub use this account, posts to that sub use that account", etc.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#436

Post by octoberfranklin »

tardedmeme wrote: post #168
JTbane wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wait isn't that every sub? /s

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#437

Post by deadbabe »

AI will be a forcing function that pushes people to go meet in real life to do stuff together.

Even if everything online is fake, events are not. So if people say they’re going to show up somewhere, there must eventually be a moment of truth. And then you can form high trust private group chats to keep talking together.

It may be hard for the current generation of chronically online people to adjust to that new reality, but the next generation of kids growing up can get used to this now, and eventually socializing in person will be natural again and the internet is for bots and weirdos LARPing as something they’re not.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#438

Post by TuringNYC »

Bjartr wrote: post #236
jredwards wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to make this viable, wouldn't you have to verify identity repeatedly? What's to stop me from providing a valid identity and then handing my account over to an agent after I'm verified?

That's why a web of trust was suggested. You keep track of who vouched for who and down weight those who vouch for users that prove to be bots. In theory at least. It's certainly more complicated than only that in practice.

>> That's why a web of trust was suggested. You keep track of who vouched for who and down weight those who vouch for users that prove to be bots.

Except eventually it will also weigh down those users who supported

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#439

Post by thin_carapace »

mschuster91 wrote: post #374
dylan604 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/05/nx-s1-5100829/russia-election... If Russia is willing to spend cash like that, then of course they're willing to run massive bot farms to pollute any forums they can. I'd be shocked if the US was not doing the same in any way they can. You have to ask why Trump killed Radio Free America as well when it was clearly not an big expense.

> You have to ask why Trump killed Radio Free America as well when it was clearly not an big expense. The obvious answer to that question is "because he's a Russian asset". But that doesn't mean the obvious answer is also the correct one. IMHO, we're seeing another and much more concerning trend at play here... the utter and complete rejection of anything but violence by the far-right. Diplomacy? Development aid? Cul…

wouldnt it be more productive to talk about the systemic framework leading to this inflamed state of affairs, and ways that we can tackle the issue on the ground level? perhaps inhabitants of the west would prefer pseudo masculinity to another few decades of migrant influx without corresponding upgrades to social infrastructure. this sort of internal struggle would provide a ripe substrate for foreign agents to perform subterfuge, especially in a screen based world where the narrative can be remotely influenced. conclusively, the population has been convinced that voting far right is the correct decision in their favor, but the question remains, who is it really in favor of? call me a centrist all you like but members of my family were executed under communist regimes so i find it pointless focusing on one side of yin/yang here (in other words, extremists are violent regardless as to their political persuasions).

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#440

Post by jorvi »

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 am not quite there with Hacker News but I do know for a fact that many "users" here are LLMs

People using LLMs without being fed their own post history are still pretty easy to detect. There's just something very recognizable about the cadence and tone of LLMs.

What really stuns me is that if you call someone out for it, 9/10 times you get absolutely buried in downvotes. Even here on HN. Its like people are angry that you're lifting the curtain on the slop, that the writing they enjoyed is fake.

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