Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI slop is killing online communities

rmoff.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 781 posts

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#591

Post by schnitzelstoat »

AdminAccount wrote: post #574

I think the only reason stackoverflow still has any activity is because the community choose to ban AI content [1] and so did most of its other networks [2]. Perhaps it will even see a (small) resurgence when AI providers start charging for the actual costs. [1] https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/421831 [2] https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/384922

The AI companies aren't so deep in the red when you only look at inference though - they are investing loads in new models in an AI arms race.

So I don't imagine AI is going to go away, especially given that now there are more open source models like Qwen that you can run locally. So even if those American behemoths go bankrupt it will persist.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#592

Post by prophesi »

WolfeReader wrote: post #67
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.

Unlike a lot of communities, yours at least started on the correct side. Better to ban outright, than to slowly realize that you should have banned it.

When it comes to slow forum content, I think it's a fool's errand to try to determine if someone is using AI for their responses. Any of the tell-tale signs of AI are easily skirted by mentioning in their prompt to not do so. It goes back to how you can't sanitize human language which has been an issue with LLM's from the beginning.

Encouraging a culture of not using AI works to an extent, but I also tire of threads claiming the parent post is AI. There isn't a sure-fire way to know one way or another.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#593

Post by spankibalt »

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.

> "I kind feel this might be good. [...] 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."

No, it isn't anywhere near good. One doesn't throw out the baby to get rid of fouled-up bathwater. Online communities are just as valid as offline ones; it's just that many people a) don't want to be deceived, and b) don't want fakery (slop) all that entails. Easy.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#594

Post by sucrosesucrose »

spankibalt wrote: post #593
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.

> "I kind feel this might be good. [...] 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." No, it isn't anywhere near good. One doesn't throw out the baby to get rid of fouled-up bathwater. Online communities are just as valid as offline ones; it's just that many people a) don't want to be deceived, and b) don't want fakery (…

> Online communities are just as valid as offline ones Hilariously false. Nothing, nothing substitutes for real human contact in the real world.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#595

Post by ramon156 »

Instagram comments genuinely make me angry.

It used to be because the comments lacked any critical thinking. This is probably due to the fact that most people on instagram are teenagers. That's fine, and for that reason I stopped reading comments.

But now it's pretty obvious that the comments are LLMs talking. Whether a human initiated it, no idea, but the big walls of text done by bobbyfoo2012 seems highly unlikely.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#596

Post by spankibalt »

sucrosesucrose wrote: post #594
spankibalt wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I kind feel this might be good. [...] 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." No, it isn't anywhere near good. One doesn't throw out the baby to get rid of fouled-up bathwater. Online communities are just as valid as offline ones; it's just that many people a) don't want to be deceived, and b) don't want fakery (…

> Online communities are just as valid as offline ones Hilariously false. Nothing, nothing substitutes for real human contact in the real world.

> "Online communities are just as valid as offline ones Hilariously false."

No, it evidently isn't. Online communities connect people, and other communities, in ways that are impossible or undesirable to realize in meatspace. Bizarre to treat this as a zero-sum game.

> "Nothing, nothing substitutes for real human contact in the real world."

It all depends on your smell™. Et cetera.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#598

Post by BoxOfRain »

Aurornis wrote: post #324
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…

For a while there were a lot of posts from people experimenting with ChatGPT to write anger bait posts on Reddit where they would later edit the post to say it was fake, written by ChatGPT. I assume they thought they'd be teaching people a lesson by making them feel foolish for responding to AI stories, most of which were too fake to be believable. However it did not matter. The posts remained popular and continued t…

Even without AI slop I've noticed this happen on Reddit.

I once made a rather boisterously-argued comment on a political issue I'm passionate about, and I realised that I'd made a serious error of reading comprehension when it came to my opponent's argument. I apologised to them for being an abrasive arse over my own mistake, then edited my comment to say that I was mistaken.

My incorrect comment which literally said at the bottom it was incorrect continued to be upvoted while my opponent who had made the stronger argument continued to be downvoted.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#599

Post by helsinkiandrew »

> But respect the community, and only share what is truly relevant. Save the crayon pictures for your kitchen fridge.

That highlights the problem - its not AI - it's the oversharing thats the issue. Many people have moved from "Sharing whats unusual/interested/excited me" to "What can I share today".

The constant stream of mediocrity drove me away from Facebook (years ago) and then Instagram.

Re: AI slop is killing online communities

#600

Post by rramadass »

rramadass wrote: post #564
throwaway2037 wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

A starting point for study; AI Deception: A Survey of Examples, Risks, and Potential Solutions - https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.14752 Deception Analysis with Artificial Intelligence: An Interdisciplinary Perspective - https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.05724

Some background (pre-AI) ;

Online Deception in Social Media - https://cacm.acm.org/research/online-deception-in-social-med...

Post reply on HN