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I'd like us all to try and reserve the accusation that someone is a bot until we really need it. I know this is probably pointless, like asking a fish not to sw

I'd like us all to try and reserve the accusation that someone is a bot until we really need it. I know this is probably pointless, like asking a fish not to swim, but if we water down this language (which is already happening & perhaps inevitable, I kinda think "bot" just means "person who expresses an opinion I don't like, that I've heard before, and feel is repetitive" in some circles - eg in this video [1] they say "bots can be people") we're going to have a harder time expressing ourselves when we need it. I'm a language descriptivist, so I'm bound to accept whatever the language does, but darn, I do find this particular evolution frustrating. [1] https://youtu.be/LEvfdBF19kQ https://youtu.be/LEvfdBF19kQ

ggm 4y ago
I tend to agree. So.. thus was somebody else running a chatbot detector against my writings here. Ie it was an accusation leveled AT me, not made BY me. If your complaint is that I committed a solecism referring to GPT trained models which can be found by hunting on Google for "chatbot gpt" I plead expediency and guilty.
- maxbond 4y ago
  I think we've misunderstood reach other, I wasn't criticizing you or anyone, I wanted to use your story to highlight a danger to everyone else that you've already experienced. I'm just shouting into the void that we shouldn't do something we're definitely gunnuh do, in the hopes that awareness will at least soften the blow.
trompetenaccoun 4y ago
The time is now, because bots are already among us. I don't see what good would come of accusing a bot though, that would be like arguing with a car when it's the driver that you should address in case of issues. We should document cases where bots are used to influence opinion though. Like these: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-china-built-a-twitter-propaganda-machine-then-let-it-loose-on-coronavirus https://www.propublica.org/article/how-china-built-a-twitter... Also, and I'm only half-serious here, claiming the time to accuse bots hasn't come yet is just what a bot would say ;)
- maxbond 4y ago
  Just to be clear, I'm not saying the time hasn't come, bots have been among us as long as there's been a social internet, I'm saying we shouldn't turn it into a pejorative or throw the accusation around willy nilly, because that's spending powder we're going to need.

ggm 4y ago

I tend to agree. So.. thus was somebody else running a chatbot detector against my writings here. Ie it was an accusation leveled AT me, not made BY me. If your complaint is that I committed a solecism referring to GPT trained models which can be found by hunting on Google for "chatbot gpt" I plead expediency and guilty.

maxbond 4y ago
I think we've misunderstood reach other, I wasn't criticizing you or anyone, I wanted to use your story to highlight a danger to everyone else that you've already experienced. I'm just shouting into the void that we shouldn't do something we're definitely gunnuh do, in the hopes that awareness will at least soften the blow.

trompetenaccoun 4y ago

The time is now, because bots are already among us. I don't see what good would come of accusing a bot though, that would be like arguing with a car when it's the driver that you should address in case of issues. We should document cases where bots are used to influence opinion though. Like these: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-china-built-a-twitter-propaganda-machine-then-let-it-loose-on-coronavirus https://www.propublica.org/article/how-china-built-a-twitter... Also, and I'm only half-serious here, claiming the time to accuse bots hasn't come yet is just what a bot would say ;)

maxbond 4y ago
Just to be clear, I'm not saying the time hasn't come, bots have been among us as long as there's been a social internet, I'm saying we shouldn't turn it into a pejorative or throw the accusation around willy nilly, because that's spending powder we're going to need.