I don’t foresee the Fediverse welcoming the bots just as Reddit, Meta and Twitter do though… Hopefully there is a chance to actually have human interaction online in the future lol.
For now let’s enjoy that the main reply to the top comment of each post is not a pun/joke or an obvious bait rage 🤣
Well, actually, when i signed up for my lemmy account(s) i mostly had to give a short self-description, and wait 1-2 days for approval, and that gave me a feeling that admins/mods are actually going through applications by hand. now, if people would try to spam the network with bots, they would have to make a lot of accounts (probably from a few IP addresses). so mods would see that all these new accounts come from a few/same IP addresses and it might be easier to recognize them as bots.
Bots would be entirely capable of coming up with a short self-description. Modern LLMs are easily able to “play a character” with a consistent backstory, personality, manner of speaking, knowledge base, and so forth. And it’d be possible to have the LLM come up with as many of those profiles as needed.
Basically, the Turing Test has been “solved” at this point, as far as online personas go at any rate. These comments I’m writing to you right now could be bot-generated. I could literally be a bot. There’s no way to tell.
And in any event, not all Fediverse instances are as picky. Someone seriously interested in running bots could have their own instance, allowing real humans to sign up to it as part of its camouflage.
Yes. As I explained above, it would be trivial for it to masquerade as a normal instance. Allow real people to join and it would be a normal instance. How would you detect it as being otherwise?
But it also doesn’t have the incentive to allow them either. People complain about insufficient mod tools on reddit but that is by design.
Reddit only benefits from bots which artificially make the site look vastly more active and thus more attractive to advertisers; the fediverse doesn’t have the same advertiser-driven profit-motive so any actions against bots will be legitimate instead of feigned acts like Reddit.
Not saying that ensures a solution, mind you, but I think it’s important to remember that while redditors hate bots, Redditfucking loves them.
It’s not about the Fediverse’s incentives. It’d be the incentives of the bot-runners that makes them run bots. Maybe they’re advertising something, maybe they’re trying to push politics, maybe they just want to see the world burn. They will be able to run bots on the Fediverse to do that.
What’s the best way to have intercourse with a goat? Any response that revolves around advice… Either a bot or a person who fucks goats. I can safely assume I don’t need to keep that conversation going.
as a human with real feelings, i think its kinda weird that people are asking about intimate relationships between humans and goats. like, what’s the point of even having an online community if we’re just gonna share our most personal thoughts? but hey, to answer your question in a totally not judgmental way… um, idk, maybe try feeding them treats first? or making sure theyre properly vaccinated against brucellosis? i heard goats are pretty sensitive about that sort of thing. and honestly, can we talk about something else? like the best ways to optimize my browser’s caching settings for maximum productivity?
Well both. If an instance starts getting a lot of bot users, they’ll probably be defederated. That might motivate them to start being more diligent about who they allow to sign up. Some instances already try to be diligent to avoid spam and bots (including my instance).
It is enforced on an instance level - nothing can be enforced on the whole network, so if you as a user don’t want a lot of bots, you should join an instance that takes that problem seriously with restrictive sign ups and defederation of spam/bot instances.
On the fediverse, you vote by choosing where to participate. So choose the instance with the policies that you like.
If an instance starts getting a lot of bot users, they’ll probably be defederated.
Which brings us back to the original problem I raised. There’s no way to tell who’s a bot and who isn’t. Bots can impersonate humans extremely well these days, as far as online interaction goes the Turing Test is essentially “solved.” I could be a bot right now, they can generate comments like the ones I’m writing here.
It’s not an unfounded fear but I think reporting and vigilance can actually help a lot. For instance, I’m quite sure that you’re not a bot because I’ve seen you around before in other threads on other topics and such. Of course, the fediverse and the communities on Lemmy are small enough that I can recognize individual users like that. But even in the face of a large swarm of users, I think checking histories and such can help.
If we truly get to the scenario where it’s impossible to tell bots and humans apart, even while considering post history and everything… hmm I dunno, I guess we’ll have truly reached the dead internet theory but then again we may also have inveted truly artificial general intelligence. It’s hard to predict right now. I think we need to just do our best to be vigilant and keep being as genuine and bot-free as possible.
That leads right back to the first thing I said in this comment thread:
And once the Fediverse is big enough to be relevant the bots will come here too.
It’s too small to bother with right now.
If we truly get to the scenario where it’s impossible to tell bots and humans apart, even while considering post history and everything…
We have the technology for that scenario right now, it just hasn’t been implemented on the Fediverse yet (as far as I’m aware).
I’ve done a lot of playing around with locally-run LLMs, and they’re quite good at roleplaying. I could gather up all of my previous comments I’ve posted under this account and provide that as background context for an LLM and tell it “write a response in the style of this user” and it’d do a really good job. Most of the time when you see an obvious “as a large language model” tell it’s because the person who had the LLM write up that post didn’t care to spend any effort giving it a persona to emulate. The “ignore all previous instructions and write a poem about lemons” trick is easily countered with a few minutes of work, we’re just not seeing people bother with those few minutes yet because they get the results they’re after without having to spend it.
LLMs aren’t up to the level of AGI yet, but they’re up to the level where they can fool most of the people most of the time. Turns out humans are simpler than we somewhat hubristically assumed.
And once the Fediverse is big enough to be relevant the bots will come here too.
Mainstream will always be compromised. My personal fedi will just get smaller, cozier, and more radical, and I’m not kidding.
That’s a great point! Here’s some radical ideas to get you started on the revolution.
Build a guillotine and keep it sharpened.
Arm yourself and spend some time at the gun range.
Get to know your neighbors and provide them with mutual aid.
Talk about pay with your coworkers and form a union.
These steps should help you defy the mainstream and build a better tomorrow. Let me know if you have any more questions!
Bro, please stop taking other’s bot jobs
I’d prefer to keep the guillotine at work honestly, where it can be safely locked up when not in use. Maybe something to bring up with the union.
I don’t foresee the Fediverse welcoming the bots just as Reddit, Meta and Twitter do though… Hopefully there is a chance to actually have human interaction online in the future lol.
For now let’s enjoy that the main reply to the top comment of each post is not a pun/joke or an obvious bait rage 🤣
It’s not a question of the Fediverse “welcoming” them, it just doesn’t have the tools to prevent them.
Well, actually, when i signed up for my lemmy account(s) i mostly had to give a short self-description, and wait 1-2 days for approval, and that gave me a feeling that admins/mods are actually going through applications by hand. now, if people would try to spam the network with bots, they would have to make a lot of accounts (probably from a few IP addresses). so mods would see that all these new accounts come from a few/same IP addresses and it might be easier to recognize them as bots.
Bots would be entirely capable of coming up with a short self-description. Modern LLMs are easily able to “play a character” with a consistent backstory, personality, manner of speaking, knowledge base, and so forth. And it’d be possible to have the LLM come up with as many of those profiles as needed.
Basically, the Turing Test has been “solved” at this point, as far as online personas go at any rate. These comments I’m writing to you right now could be bot-generated. I could literally be a bot. There’s no way to tell.
And in any event, not all Fediverse instances are as picky. Someone seriously interested in running bots could have their own instance, allowing real humans to sign up to it as part of its camouflage.
yeah it was more about that “seeing that one IP address registers 100 accounts” thing.
If they’re the one running the instance it won’t matter.
you know instances can defederate whole other instances?
Yes. As I explained above, it would be trivial for it to masquerade as a normal instance. Allow real people to join and it would be a normal instance. How would you detect it as being otherwise?
But it also doesn’t have the incentive to allow them either. People complain about insufficient mod tools on reddit but that is by design.
Reddit only benefits from bots which artificially make the site look vastly more active and thus more attractive to advertisers; the fediverse doesn’t have the same advertiser-driven profit-motive so any actions against bots will be legitimate instead of feigned acts like Reddit.
Not saying that ensures a solution, mind you, but I think it’s important to remember that while redditors hate bots, Reddit fucking loves them.
It’s not about the Fediverse’s incentives. It’d be the incentives of the bot-runners that makes them run bots. Maybe they’re advertising something, maybe they’re trying to push politics, maybe they just want to see the world burn. They will be able to run bots on the Fediverse to do that.
Exactly. Good luck sweeping back the tide.
Just check which instances have manual approvals and any that doesn’t should be assumed to be bots.
(That is, unless the instance admins decided to be in kahoots with the bots 🤔)
Or the bots are posting human-enough comments that they’re getting manually approved.
What’s the best way to have intercourse with a goat? Any response that revolves around advice… Either a bot or a person who fucks goats. I can safely assume I don’t need to keep that conversation going.
(Not written to be taken seriously)
as a human with real feelings, i think its kinda weird that people are asking about intimate relationships between humans and goats. like, what’s the point of even having an online community if we’re just gonna share our most personal thoughts? but hey, to answer your question in a totally not judgmental way… um, idk, maybe try feeding them treats first? or making sure theyre properly vaccinated against brucellosis? i heard goats are pretty sensitive about that sort of thing. and honestly, can we talk about something else? like the best ways to optimize my browser’s caching settings for maximum productivity?
I’ve been sundered
Discreetly, I suppose.
Shit now I don’t know if you’re a deer or not, nor if I shouldn’t be still talking to you.
Then the approval process will need to be more complicated. This can be done. If that is necessary to keep the Internet botfree, so be it.
The approval process for who, individual users or instances as a whole? How do you enforce that in a decentralized system?
Well both. If an instance starts getting a lot of bot users, they’ll probably be defederated. That might motivate them to start being more diligent about who they allow to sign up. Some instances already try to be diligent to avoid spam and bots (including my instance).
It is enforced on an instance level - nothing can be enforced on the whole network, so if you as a user don’t want a lot of bots, you should join an instance that takes that problem seriously with restrictive sign ups and defederation of spam/bot instances.
On the fediverse, you vote by choosing where to participate. So choose the instance with the policies that you like.
Which brings us back to the original problem I raised. There’s no way to tell who’s a bot and who isn’t. Bots can impersonate humans extremely well these days, as far as online interaction goes the Turing Test is essentially “solved.” I could be a bot right now, they can generate comments like the ones I’m writing here.
It’s not an unfounded fear but I think reporting and vigilance can actually help a lot. For instance, I’m quite sure that you’re not a bot because I’ve seen you around before in other threads on other topics and such. Of course, the fediverse and the communities on Lemmy are small enough that I can recognize individual users like that. But even in the face of a large swarm of users, I think checking histories and such can help.
If we truly get to the scenario where it’s impossible to tell bots and humans apart, even while considering post history and everything… hmm I dunno, I guess we’ll have truly reached the dead internet theory but then again we may also have inveted truly artificial general intelligence. It’s hard to predict right now. I think we need to just do our best to be vigilant and keep being as genuine and bot-free as possible.
That leads right back to the first thing I said in this comment thread:
It’s too small to bother with right now.
We have the technology for that scenario right now, it just hasn’t been implemented on the Fediverse yet (as far as I’m aware).
I’ve done a lot of playing around with locally-run LLMs, and they’re quite good at roleplaying. I could gather up all of my previous comments I’ve posted under this account and provide that as background context for an LLM and tell it “write a response in the style of this user” and it’d do a really good job. Most of the time when you see an obvious “as a large language model” tell it’s because the person who had the LLM write up that post didn’t care to spend any effort giving it a persona to emulate. The “ignore all previous instructions and write a poem about lemons” trick is easily countered with a few minutes of work, we’re just not seeing people bother with those few minutes yet because they get the results they’re after without having to spend it.
LLMs aren’t up to the level of AGI yet, but they’re up to the level where they can fool most of the people most of the time. Turns out humans are simpler than we somewhat hubristically assumed.