3 ms·

What was the initial message? A bot pretending to be a human for the purposes of political persuasion is a crime in California.

ajhurliman 3y ago
What’s the bar for “pretending”? Is mere omission of their unnatural status considered deception?
- roddylindsay 3y ago
  "17941. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person to use a bot to communicate or interact with another person in California online, with the intent to mislead the other person about its artificial identity for the purpose of knowingly deceiving the person about the content of the communication in order to incentivize a purchase or sale of goods or services in a commercial transaction or to influence a vote in an election. A person using a bot shall not be liable under this section if the person discloses that it is a bot."
  - ellisv 3y ago
    Something tells me this wouldn't hold up in South Carolina.
  - Mr_Modulo 3y ago
    It says online though so it might not apply to SMS. Seems like a pretty big oversite.
    - roddylindsay 3y ago
      (b) “Online” means appearing on any public-facing Internet Web site, Web application, or digital application, including a social network or publication. SMS could be a considered a "digital application", so it might apply. Agree that it could use clarification.
    - ajhurliman 3y ago
      If the message originated from twilio there would probably be an argument that that’s “online”
- kibwen 3y ago
  Clearly we need a new first-person pronoun for the exclusive use of bots, so there's never any confusion. I propose "O", as in I/O.
gottorf 3y ago
> A bot pretending to be a human for the purposes of political persuasion is a crime in California. I've never heard of this. I assume the actual crime is in a human being setting up such a bot, since a bot cannot commit a crime?
- roddylindsay 3y ago
  https://www.natlawreview.com/article/california-s-bot-disclosure-law-sb-1001-now-effect https://www.natlawreview.com/article/california-s-bot-disclo...
commondream 3y ago
Oh holy hell, I totally forgot about that. I'll update the post, because this is pretty bad: "Hi, I'm Liz working to elect Ron DeSantis. Do you have a minute to answer a couple of questions?"
- xalindsay 3y ago
  Some thorny legal questions for sure. We wrote about it here: https://aipoliticalpulse.substack.com/p/is-that-a-pile-of-gpus-or-ron-desantis https://aipoliticalpulse.substack.com/p/is-that-a-pile-of-gp...

ajhurliman 3y ago

What’s the bar for “pretending”? Is mere omission of their unnatural status considered deception?

roddylindsay 3y ago
"17941. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person to use a bot to communicate or interact with another person in California online, with the intent to mislead the other person about its artificial identity for the purpose of knowingly deceiving the person about the content of the communication in order to incentivize a purchase or sale of goods or services in a commercial transaction or to influence a vote in an election. A person using a bot shall not be liable under this section if the person discloses that it is a bot."
- ellisv 3y ago
  Something tells me this wouldn't hold up in South Carolina.
- Mr_Modulo 3y ago
  It says online though so it might not apply to SMS. Seems like a pretty big oversite.
  - roddylindsay 3y ago
    (b) “Online” means appearing on any public-facing Internet Web site, Web application, or digital application, including a social network or publication. SMS could be a considered a "digital application", so it might apply. Agree that it could use clarification.
  - ajhurliman 3y ago
    If the message originated from twilio there would probably be an argument that that’s “online”
kibwen 3y ago
Clearly we need a new first-person pronoun for the exclusive use of bots, so there's never any confusion. I propose "O", as in I/O.

gottorf 3y ago

> A bot pretending to be a human for the purposes of political persuasion is a crime in California. I've never heard of this. I assume the actual crime is in a human being setting up such a bot, since a bot cannot commit a crime?

roddylindsay 3y ago
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/california-s-bot-disclosure-law-sb-1001-now-effect https://www.natlawreview.com/article/california-s-bot-disclo...

commondream 3y ago

Oh holy hell, I totally forgot about that. I'll update the post, because this is pretty bad: "Hi, I'm Liz working to elect Ron DeSantis. Do you have a minute to answer a couple of questions?"

xalindsay 3y ago
Some thorny legal questions for sure. We wrote about it here: https://aipoliticalpulse.substack.com/p/is-that-a-pile-of-gpus-or-ron-desantis https://aipoliticalpulse.substack.com/p/is-that-a-pile-of-gp...