3 ms·

As LLM prices come down social media is going to be absolutely inundated with bots that are indistinguishable from humans. I can't see a world where forums or s

As LLM prices come down social media is going to be absolutely inundated with bots that are indistinguishable from humans. I can't see a world where forums or social media are _useful_ for anything in 10 years unless there are strict gate keepers (e.g. you have to receive a code in person or access is tied directly to your physical identity to access the site).

Enginerrrd 3y ago
Yeah the ability to astroturf (at massive scale!) product reviews or political opinions as comments in reddit posts and the like will be sort of horrifying. The dead Internet hypothesis may yet come true.
pradn 3y ago
Isn’t there a limit to this when one requires an account to be tied to a phone number? Perhaps pseudonymous posting is on a countdown clock.
JustBreath 3y ago
The worst part is social media networks aren't necessarily against AI/bot engagement since it greatly fluffs their numbers and keeps their users occupied. It seems inevitable that some sort of signature or identity proof will be necessary soon to participate in most online forums. Either esoteric networking between people or straight up government/private entity issued multi factor authentication.
doliveira 3y ago
Ironically for crypto bros, I think the way forward will be to codify the real-world trust structures into the digital world. The future is trustful. I just really hope we find a way to codify it without scanning people's eyeballs into the blockchain like the guy in charge of the world's first AGI wants to do.
rcarr 3y ago
> or access is tied directly to your physical identity to access the site). This is what is inevitably going to happen. There will be some kind of service provider (probably one of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon) who will verify who you are via official documents such as passport and driving license. When you sign up to a smaller company's service they'll check with the providers to see if you're a genuine person and if so then they'll let you join, if not you'll be blocked. You might be able to use the forum with an anonymous name but the company will always know who you are and if you use your account to spam or abuse people you'll get blacklisted and reported to the police. Any service that doesn't implement the model will be an unusable hell hole of bots and spam. The internet will splinter into two and you'll have the "verified net" and the "unverified net" with the latter basically becoming a second dark web. To be honest, I think this will probably be a good thing. I think the vast majority of people will spend most of their time on the verified net, which will actually be a more pleasant place to be because people won't be able to get away with what they can now without real consequences in physical reality. That being said there are plenty of ways it could go wrong - if those accounts get hacked and the owner of the account can't prove it then we could see innocent people going to jail. Or state actors could hack the accounts of citizens they see as problematic and frame them. But all that stuff could happen today anyway - the verification or lack there of doesn't make that much difference but does substantially reduce the use of bots.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  I have been thinking the same sort of thing as well over the last while. I was thinking more of a browser level plugin, in which content from unverified users would be blurred out with a "unverified user - click to view content" type of system. Everything you post will be connected to your identity, so you would be liable for deepfakes and the like. You would also have an activity rating connected to your identity, so other people could see if you are posting 1 piece of content per hour, or 1000. Maybe a personal media manager connected to the browser so all of the public content that is "signed" by you will be easily viewable by you, and if someone posts something that is not actually yours under your identity somehow, you will be easily be able to rescind the signature. Just random shower thoughts...
  - balder1991 3y ago
    Except now there’s a human problem: let’s say I’m Filipino and you’re “supposedly” Chinese. The Chinese government swears to the system you’re a real person. Can we trust that?
- withinboredom 3y ago
  Did you just describe AOL??
soultrees 3y ago
Maybe that’s the method behinds Reddit’s api madness this whole time. (/s). Now only the hugest brands can run their own bots

Enginerrrd 3y ago

Yeah the ability to astroturf (at massive scale!) product reviews or political opinions as comments in reddit posts and the like will be sort of horrifying. The dead Internet hypothesis may yet come true.

pradn 3y ago

Isn’t there a limit to this when one requires an account to be tied to a phone number? Perhaps pseudonymous posting is on a countdown clock.

JustBreath 3y ago

The worst part is social media networks aren't necessarily against AI/bot engagement since it greatly fluffs their numbers and keeps their users occupied. It seems inevitable that some sort of signature or identity proof will be necessary soon to participate in most online forums. Either esoteric networking between people or straight up government/private entity issued multi factor authentication.

doliveira 3y ago

Ironically for crypto bros, I think the way forward will be to codify the real-world trust structures into the digital world. The future is trustful. I just really hope we find a way to codify it without scanning people's eyeballs into the blockchain like the guy in charge of the world's first AGI wants to do.

rcarr 3y ago

> or access is tied directly to your physical identity to access the site). This is what is inevitably going to happen. There will be some kind of service provider (probably one of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon) who will verify who you are via official documents such as passport and driving license. When you sign up to a smaller company's service they'll check with the providers to see if you're a genuine person and if so then they'll let you join, if not you'll be blocked. You might be able to use the forum with an anonymous name but the company will always know who you are and if you use your account to spam or abuse people you'll get blacklisted and reported to the police. Any service that doesn't implement the model will be an unusable hell hole of bots and spam. The internet will splinter into two and you'll have the "verified net" and the "unverified net" with the latter basically becoming a second dark web. To be honest, I think this will probably be a good thing. I think the vast majority of people will spend most of their time on the verified net, which will actually be a more pleasant place to be because people won't be able to get away with what they can now without real consequences in physical reality. That being said there are plenty of ways it could go wrong - if those accounts get hacked and the owner of the account can't prove it then we could see innocent people going to jail. Or state actors could hack the accounts of citizens they see as problematic and frame them. But all that stuff could happen today anyway - the verification or lack there of doesn't make that much difference but does substantially reduce the use of bots.

JimtheCoder 3y ago
I have been thinking the same sort of thing as well over the last while. I was thinking more of a browser level plugin, in which content from unverified users would be blurred out with a "unverified user - click to view content" type of system. Everything you post will be connected to your identity, so you would be liable for deepfakes and the like. You would also have an activity rating connected to your identity, so other people could see if you are posting 1 piece of content per hour, or 1000. Maybe a personal media manager connected to the browser so all of the public content that is "signed" by you will be easily viewable by you, and if someone posts something that is not actually yours under your identity somehow, you will be easily be able to rescind the signature. Just random shower thoughts...
- balder1991 3y ago
  Except now there’s a human problem: let’s say I’m Filipino and you’re “supposedly” Chinese. The Chinese government swears to the system you’re a real person. Can we trust that?
withinboredom 3y ago
Did you just describe AOL??

soultrees 3y ago

Maybe that’s the method behinds Reddit’s api madness this whole time. (/s). Now only the hugest brands can run their own bots