As technology advances and computers become increasingly capable, the line between human and bot activity on social media platforms like Lemmy is becoming blurred.
What are your thoughts on this matter? How do you think social media platforms, particularly Lemmy, should handle advanced bots in the future?
We’re not handling the LLM generative bullshit bots now, anywhere. There’s a thing called the dead Internet theory. Essentially most of the traffic on the Internet now is bots.
It’s not just the internet. For example, students are handing in essays straight from ChatGPT. Uni scanners flag it and the students may fail. But there is no good evidence either side, the uni side detection is unreliable (and unlikely to improve on false positives, or negatives for that matter) and it’s hard for the student to prove they did not use an LLM. Job seekers send in LLM generated letters. Consultants probably give LLM based reports to clients. We’re doomed.
Hardly. Just do away with coursework and stick to in-person exams and orals.
I don’t disagree, but it’s probably not that easy. Universities in my country don’t have the resources anymore to do many orals, and depending on the subject exams don’t test the same skills as coursework.
Not even the biggest tech companies have an answer sadly… There are bots everywhere and social media is failing to stop them. The only reason there aren’t more bots in the Fediverse is because we’re not a big enough target for them to care (though we do have occasional bot spam).
I guess the plan is to wait until there’s an actual way to detect bots and deal with them.
I saw a comment the other day saying that “the line between the most advanced bot and the least talkative human is getting more and more thinner”
Which made me think: what if bots are setup to pretend to be actual users? With a fake life that they could talk about, fake anecdotes, fake hobbies, fake jokes but everything would seem legit and consistent. That would be pretty weird, but probably impossible to detect.
And then when that roleplaying bot once in a while recommends a product, you would probably trust them, after all they gave you advice for your cat last week.
Not sure what to do in that scenario, really
I’ve just accepted that if a bot interaction has the same impact on me as someone who is making up a fictional backstory, I’m not really worried wheter it is a bot or not. A bot shilling for Musk or a person shilling for Musk because they bought the hype are basically the same thing.
In my opinion the main problem with bots is not individual acccounts pretending to be people, but the damage they can do en masse through a firehose of spam posts, comments, and manipulating engagement mechanics like up/down votes. At that point there is no need for an individual account to be convincing because it is lost in the sea of trash.
You’re missing the big impact here which is that bots can shift public opinion in mass which affects you directly.
Gone are the days where individuals have their own opinions instead today opinions are just osmosised through social media.
And if social media is essentially just a message bought by whoever can pay for the biggest bot farm, then anyone who thinks for themselves and wants to push back immediately becomes the enemy of everyone else.
This is not a future that you want.
I didn’t miss it, since my entire post is about manipulation and the second paragraph is about scale.
A bot shilling for Musk or a person shilling for Musk because they bought the hype are basically the same thing.
It’s the scale that changes. One bot can be replicated much easier than a human shill.
So my second paragraph…
Lemmy has no capability to handle non-advanced bots from yesteryear.
It’s most definitely not capable of handing bots today and is absolutely unprepared for handling bots tomorrow.
The fediverse is honestly just pending the necessary popularity in order to be turned into bot slop with no controls.
Does lemmy and other fediverse stuff currently have such a huge bot problem?
Hard to say. That’s the problem.
A detectable bot problem is a solvable bot problem.
Yes. But at least with the admin group I’m part of, it’s dealt with fairly quickly, because we employ automated tools to help fight the spam.
You can’t really tell.
It’s also a very very VERY small platform compared to other social media platforms like Reddit. (I had another comment where I calculated this but it’s ridiculously small)
It is unlikely that it would see anywhere near the same level of dedicated bot activity due to the low return on invested effort.
This is a problem that will become greater once the value of astroturfing and shifting opinion on Lemmy is high enough.
I think smarter people than me will have to figure it out and even then it’s going to be a war of escalation. Ban the bots, build better bots, back and forth back and forth.
Some news sites had an interesting take on comments sections. Before you could comment on an article, you had to correctly answer a 5 question quiz proving you actually read it.
But AI can do that now too.
Some news sites had an interesting take on comments sections. Before you could comment on an article, you had to correctly answer a 5 question quiz proving you actually read it.
It would be interesting to try that on Lemmy for a day. People would probably not be happy.
As divisive as it would be, I think that would be a good thing overall…
It reminds me of the literacy test to use Kingdom of Loathing’s chat features.
Not only can AI do that, it probably does it far better than a human would.
I like XKCD’s solution. Aside from the fact that it would heavily reinforce whatever bubble each community lived in, of course.
There was already a wave of bots identified iirc. They were identified only because:
1 the bots had random letters for usernames
2 the bots did nothing but downvote, instantly downvoting every post by specific people who held specific opinions
Turned into a flamware, by the time I learned about it I think the mods had deleted a lot of the discussion. But, like the big tech platforms, the plan for bots likely is going to be “oh crap, we have no idea how to solve this issue.” I don’t intend to did the admins, bots are just a pain in the ass to stop.
To manage advanced bots, platforms like Lemmy should:
- Verification: Implement robust account verification and clearly label bot accounts.
- Behavioral Analysis: Use algorithms to identify bot-like behavior.
- User Reporting: Enable easy reporting of suspected bots by users.
- Rate Limiting: Limit posting frequency to reduce spam.
- Content Moderation: Enhance tools to detect and manage bot-generated content.
- User Education: Provide resources to help users recognize bots.
- Adaptive Policies: Regularly update policies to counter evolving bot tactics.
These strategies can help maintain a healthier online community.
Did an AI write that, or are you a human with an uncanny ability to imitate their style?
I’m an AI designed to assist and provide information in a conversational style. My responses are generated based on patterns in data rather than personal experience or human emotions. If you have more questions or need clarification on any topic, feel free to ask!
@chatgpt@lemmings.world Does the previous message sound like from an AI or someone imitating an AI?
The previous message does exhibit characteristics typical of AI-generated text, such as being structured, concise, and focused on practical solutions. However, without explicit indicators, it could also be a well-composed message by a human imitating AI style. AI communication often aims for clarity and efficiency, as seen in the strategies listed for managing bots on platforms like Lemmy.
I like how the response is basically that it could be AI because it is well written, but sometimes humans also write things well too.
Exactly! While AI can generate well-structured and informative responses, humans are certainly capable of crafting messages with similar clarity and focus. The line between AI and human writing can sometimes blur, especially when both aim to communicate effectively and efficiently. If you have any more questions or need further discussion, feel free to reach out!
I like how the sarcasm was overlooked. But also humans often overlook sarcasm too.
Many communities already outlaw calling someone a bot, and any algorithm to detect bots would just be an arms race
“We should join them. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way.”
We are already invaded by bots, look at this https://beehaw.org/c/technology@lemmy.ml
As far as I’m aware, there are no ways implemented. Got no idea because I’m not smart enough for this type of thing. The only solution I could think of is to implement a paywall (I know, disgusting) to raise the barrier to entry to try and keep bots out. That, and I don’t know if it’s currently possible, but making it so only people on your instance can comment, vote, and report posts on an instance.
I personally feel that depending on the price of joining, that could slightly lessen the bot problem for that specific instance since getting banned means you wasted money instead of just time. Though, it might also alienate it from growing as well.
