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AI slop is killing online communities

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Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#531

Post by nullc »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #153
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #55

I run a niche creative community, and we outlawed AI-generated content in 2022 as it was easy to see how corrosive it would be to the community. It hasn't been easy. We ban fake AI accounts daily and shrug off around 600 AI content creator accounts monthly. It's a lot of work, extra work that wasn't needed before AI content came around, and of course, that is an extra cost. I fear losing the battle.

What about charging $1 or $5 for an account? Seems like you could stem the tide pretty easily with something like that.

A lot of the "add a cost to stop bad actors" end up being a selection effect in favor of bad actors.

Sure, it might stop 10% of the bad actors and lower the numbers, but it'll stop 80% of the good users who aren't experts at getting around the cost or don't have an income from using the service to just pay it as a cost of business.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#533

Post by crote »

protocolture wrote: post #366
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #55

I run a niche creative community, and we outlawed AI-generated content in 2022 as it was easy to see how corrosive it would be to the community. It hasn't been easy. We ban fake AI accounts daily and shrug off around 600 AI content creator accounts monthly. It's a lot of work, extra work that wasn't needed before AI content came around, and of course, that is an extra cost. I fear losing the battle.

>shrug off around 600 AI content creator accounts monthly. >I fear losing the battle. I was in a small niche creative writing community for a while. Circa 2021\22. AI wasn't why I was there but I demo'd a few LLMs to a lot of the users in the Off Topic section because people were curious. Even with an explanation of how they operated, almost everyone was at least interested. One author told me how he operated similar…

Have you considered the possibility that most non-programmer people mostly experienced the negative effects?

Blockchain turned out to be an absolutely awful payment method, so most people only know it as 1) a way to do crimes like ransomware, 2) a get-rich-quick scam, 3) some buzzword companies threw in everything, 4) the thing that made GPUs unaffordable.

AI is now the thing that 1) is drowning the internet in slop, 2) companies throw into everything - to the point of making apps unusable, 3) makes most computer parts unaffordable. And what they get in return is... a kinda okay-ish Google? A homework plagiarism machine?

Their opinion about AI or blockchain most likely has absolutely nothing to do with you. They are just seeing the world noticeably get worse, and are desperately trying to protect their communities from it in any way they can.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#534

Post by HerbManic »

ishouldstayaway wrote: post #280
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about charging $1 or $5 for an account? Seems like you could stem the tide pretty easily with something like that.

We bringing back Something Awful, now?

No it's Something IS awful.

Sorry, they did an interview about 20 years back were they kept correcting the host to 'Something is awful' I have just called it that ever since.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#535

Post by mezyt »

originalvichy wrote: post #200

Re: "The Asymmetry of Bullshit" I'm gonna speak on behalf of language models' capability of making online communities better. In recent times, the frustrating forum phenomenon of "learned helplessness" is making me too annoyed to participate. Even in a fantastic subreddit as /r/LocalLLaMA, there are people posting replies in the vein of > user1: please help me understand this acronym the post title speaks of > user2:…

Turn out people like to ask low quality questions, as evidenced by the reputation of Stackoverflow moderators.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#536

Post by anvuong »

alaudet wrote: post #307

The balance is so far out of whack with LLM's now in online communities. People crave human interaction with like minded individuals, and whoever figures out how to give authentic online experiences is going to be successful. Maybe small communities need to come back, where you build credibility slowly. Why does every site have to be a monstrosity that wants to build a hundred million users to IPO. It just attracts t…

I use Blind sometimes to check the TC of a company. Most of the posts/comments there are either stupid, sexist, racist, or all of them. But it does feel like most of them are real. Blind requires verification by company email for posting, which I guess eliminates most of the bots.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#537

Post by iammjm »

rgblambda wrote: post #323
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about charging $1 or $5 for an account? Seems like you could stem the tide pretty easily with something like that.

Or applying for an account could involve sending a handwritten letter by post.

This is fucked and I hate it. Internet is (was?) about convenience and direct access. I understand there are challenges that need solutions, but this ain’t it

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#538

Post by HerbManic »

smcg wrote: post #88
agustechbro wrote: post #18

I kind feel this might be good. Bot writen comments and AI media that can no longer be distinguish from real, will make us human leave the social networks, which helped to separate Us humans. Going back to the real world were you can trully believe on what you see, and enjoy the tone, look and scent of of our fellows humans beings.

This seems naive. As long as people are "enjoying" the AI-infested social networks, or at least not annoyed enough to leave, they will stay on them, and become further disconnected from reality. We have half of EU teenagers talking to chatbots regularly. Alienated people flock to them.

Reminds me when reality TV came a long. Many folks were convinced that it would be a passing fad and that within 12-18 months TV would return to the way it had been before hand. That because the quality was so low people would eventually bore of it, still waiting for that moment...

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#539

Post by protocolture »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #150
RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Take a soft approach, or "wait and see", and you'll just allow your community to get infested with slop enthusiast crybullies that loudly protest any pushback against "genai content". The communities that draw a firm line and hold it will be the only ones that endure.

It was a surprise to us how vehemently some folk defended AI content and assumed it was their right to post it within our community. We had no problems with people using it and posting elsewhere, it was the demands that we must allow it that were problematic and made us question whether we were doing the right thing. No regrets now, though, as we see competitors being flooded with AI slop and they are too invested in…

>It was a surprise to us how vehemently some folk defended AI content and assumed it was their right to post it within our community.

People often confuse freedom of speech, with freedom to access a specific platform for speech.

Its dead wrong, I dont know why people would want to be in a community where they arent wanted.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#540

Post by throwaway2037 »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #55

I run a niche creative community, and we outlawed AI-generated content in 2022 as it was easy to see how corrosive it would be to the community. It hasn't been easy. We ban fake AI accounts daily and shrug off around 600 AI content creator accounts monthly. It's a lot of work, extra work that wasn't needed before AI content came around, and of course, that is an extra cost. I fear losing the battle.

High quality anecdata are exactly the reason why I love HN. Thanks for posting about it.

    > fake AI accounts
First, how do you identify them? Is it strictly admins monitoring posts/server-side logs or do users report odd behaviour?

Second, what is the purpose of these accounts? Are they basically running submarine adverts, or are they just trolling (to harm the community)?

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