Forum bots

[tigerwillow1]

I don't know much about these bots we're seeing. They are a step up from spam and trolling, trying to look like serious technical conversation. The only giveaways I see are a low post count and language nuances. The language could improve down the road to not be a giveaway. I have a lot of questions:

1. Are the bots combing the forums and joining by themselves, or is there a real person getting the ball rolling?
2. What's the purpose? Teenager prank? Harassment? Something more sinister?
3. Is the bot automatically responding to posts, or does a person pick a post to respond to and feed it to AI to generate a response?
4. How do admins deal with it?
5. Is it going to wreck the forums with bots responding to bots to the point that serious posts are lost in the noise?

 

[OICU2]

.....
2. What's the purpose? Teenager prank? Harassment? Something more sinister?....

AI it is and AI is the purpose for more learning. Whether or not that purpose is for the better good is questionable in my opinion.

 

[garycrist]

AI= Assholes & Idiots
Or simply GIGO!

 

[Arjun]

The internet is a mystery nowadays

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are celebrating. Tim Cook and Satya Nadella are rejoicing.

Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak both do not care

I don't know much about these bots we're seeing. They are a step up from spam and trolling, trying to look like serious technical conversation. The only giveaways I see are a low post count and language nuances. The language could improve down the road to not be a giveaway. I have a lot of questions:

1. Are the bots combing the forums and joining by themselves, or is there a real person getting the ball rolling?
2. What's the purpose? Teenager prank? Harassment? Something more sinister?
3. Is the bot automatically responding to posts, or does a person pick a post to respond to and feed it to AI to generate a response?
4. How do admins deal with it?
5. Is it going to wreck the forums with bots responding to bots to the point that serious posts are lost in the noise?

 

[Mike A.]

I don't get it either. There's no need to log into forums to scrape the data from them for training purposes. You could do it a lot more efficiently without. I can't think how they'd benefit from "participating" in the way that they do here.

Another forum that I'm on is not moderated and has a weak login so it gets a ton of them. There the way that it typically works is that they'll key on some phrase in a thread. Then the bots will come in and have fake banter back and forth along the lines of that subject. Finally that will lead up to some spammed site. Annoying but that at least makes sense to me.

 

[fenderman]

I don't know much about these bots we're seeing. They are a step up from spam and trolling, trying to look like serious technical conversation. The only giveaways I see are a low post count and language nuances. The language could improve down the road to not be a giveaway. I have a lot of questions:

1. Are the bots combing the forums and joining by themselves, or is there a real person getting the ball rolling?
2. What's the purpose? Teenager prank? Harassment? Something more sinister?
3. Is the bot automatically responding to posts, or does a person pick a post to respond to and feed it to AI to generate a response?
4. How do admins deal with it?
5. Is it going to wreck the forums with bots responding to bots to the point that serious posts are lost in the noise?

Most of the time they post then come back a few days later and add a hyperlink to whatever they are trying to bring traffic to...this is all likely automated
@Mike is working on additional solutions to keep them at bay. Most are detected by spam filters so you only see a small percentage that slip through the cracks..

 

[samplenhold]

I kind of like seeing them. It is interesting to see the evolution of their interactions. To answer:

1. Are the bots combing the forums and joining by themselves, or is there a real person getting the ball rolling?
Originally, a human (or sub-human depending on your feeling about bots) would get them an account. Present day it is totally AI controlled.

2. What's the purpose? Teenager prank? Harassment? Something more sinister?
The AIs are learning, adapting. Their goal is to be undetectable. The purpose will be to shape online discussions for a list of reasons. Pick one.

3. Is the bot automatically responding to posts, or does a person pick a post to respond to and feed it to AI to generate a response?
AI is looking at posts and replying/posting to see the response. They no longer have a human directing them.

4. How do admins deal with it?
That I do not know.

5. Is it going to wreck the forums with bots responding to bots to the point that serious posts are lost in the noise?
I doubt that it will wreck the forums. Ultimately BOTs will be able to recognize other BOTs, and may possible do that already. I suppose that they could just carry on conversations with eachother as a form of entertainment, but that is just speculation.

 

[Flintstone61]

Hi, I'm a newbie to this whole Cam thing....SO many cams so much confusion...What are the best cams out there? ( gleaning info for cheap) I want a system that will record 24/7 and have AI and LPR, can you recommend a System? ( glean more free info)
If connected to a competing Brand (Bot might counter the info with a better price better spec'd system) thus guiding the uninitiated to Reolink....or some such shit

 

[tigerwillow1]

Their goal is to be undetectable. The purpose will be to shape online discussions for a list of reasons.

I'm pretty well convinced that news article comments are often bots. I sometimes scan the yahoo news comments and the sheer volume and one-sidedness of the comments is way outside the bounds of reasonable probability. What I notice about the comments is:
1. They are always against Trump.
2. They are always against republicans.
3. They are always against the open border, which I can't figure out, because that seemingly contradicts #1 and #2.

Today I noticed the comments are viscously going after RFK. Where do we end up when everything we see and hear is generated and controlled by machines? Matrix? Skynet?

 

[TonyR]

Where do we end up when everything we see and hear is generated and controlled by machines? Matrix? Skynet?

Here......