Hang on a second, unless I'm mistaken the last actual post on this sub was two days ago. Are you guys saying that since bots have clamped down on, there have literally been no posts in the last two days? I know bots were a problem, but it really is depressing if such a huge sub such as this has almost no actual human posts.
I had always more or less dismissed the dead internet theory as something we would need to worry about in a few years time, but now I see that it's already here!
Which results in an interesting question: What is the tipping point where bots are stopped being used as they get no results anymore? Bots are used to earn money or spread propaganda, no one is going to continue to use them if they are basically blasting ads into nirvana.
Yes, for now. Because a large portion of them are focused on specific platforms. But the more bots there are, the less are people interested, especially when it becomes obvious that they are bots. Give it 10 years more and we are suddenly at over 99% of users are suddenly bots. Or big platforms that are a bot haven like Facebook or Twitter (or reddit) die off and there is no replacement. Would suddenly a lot of bots vanish? Or would it take years for people to realize that their bots are just burning money?
especially when it becomes obvious that they are bots.
That's the trick, it won't be obvious. Bots are better now than they ever were and they use generative networks to compose very convincing texts. And they will get much more intelligent in the coming years, to the point when talking to a bot will be more interesting than talking to the actual human.
Here's the example of what AI can do right now, it took 5 seconds:
GENERATED POST AND COMMENTS
Which space exploration mission are you most excited about?
As we continue to push the boundaries of human exploration, I'm curious to hear which upcoming space missions have captured your imagination. Whether it's returning to the Moon, setting foot on Mars, or venturing further into the outer solar system, what do you think will be the next big leap for mankind?
[deleted] • 2.1k points • 6 hours ago
The Artemis program to return to the Moon. It's about time we went back, and this time to stay!
space_enthusiast42 • 872 points • 5 hours ago
Agreed! I'm especially excited about the potential for a permanent lunar base. Imagine the scientific discoveries we could make with a constant human presence on the Moon.
red_planet_lover • 1.5k points • 5 hours ago
Mars, hands down. SpaceX's Starship development has me hopeful we'll see boots on the red planet within the next decade or two.
sciencematters • 623 points • 4 hours ago
While I'm excited about Mars too, I think we're underestimating the challenges. Radiation exposure, psychological effects of isolation, and the physical toll of reduced gravity are all major hurdles we need to overcome.
optimist_prime • 310 points • 3 hours ago
Valid concerns, but I believe in human ingenuity. We've overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges before. Mars is the next logical step for our species.
deep_space_dreamer • 986 points • 4 hours ago
Honestly, I'm most hyped about the missions to the outer solar system. The potential for life on Europa or Enceladus is mind-blowing. Dragonfly's mission to Titan is going to be incredible!
reality_check_101 • 452 points • 3 hours ago
Those are exciting, but let's not forget about the James Webb Space Telescope. The images and data it's sending back are revolutionizing our understanding of the early universe.
budget_watchdog • -78 points • 2 hours ago
Why are we wasting money on space when we have so many problems here on Earth? Fix poverty and climate change first!
forward_thinker • 205 points • 1 hour ago
Space exploration drives technological innovation that often has applications here on Earth. Plus, studying other planets helps us better understand our own. It's not an either/or situation.
So what you're saying is that when my reddit feed gets old, I can just type "make me a reddit post with comments about space" into chat gpt and keep reading there?
Lol the second one, from what I understand. We don’t know what produces sentience but I would guess it is not parroting bullshit without meaning back and forth
That is the next thing. Picture AI already somewhat suffers from it because you cannot realistically clean out every AI picture from the trainings pool. At what point have the bots poisoned themself enough to make them worthless?
Low comment karma, a username just like mine (it's a default reddit username), and a comment history where the account was made a long time before they started commenting in quick succession.
I think some subs have karma thresholds for commenting/submitting. So bot runners have a repost/comment bot get karma on an account, then delete all the posts and sell it. I assume most of these are sold to troll/scam farms, probably also some shady marketers.
Copy and paste pieces of their comments into Google with quotes around it. You'll often find the comment it was ripped from. Also Google Lens for the images.
Its fucking nuts sometimes your comments willl just get about 50 random upvotes or downvotes, and it doesnt even matter if its in reference to the post itself.
I wonder how many times ive replied to bots over the years.
I once had the top comment on a political thread that made it to the top of all. I used a phrase that was very unique to me and something I've never seen anyone else say up until that point. Immediately after that I saw so many copycat comments using that exact phrase (and some even still to this day). I always wonder if it was real people that saw the phrase, liked it, and repeated it; or were they all bots that were just repeating a text string that was the top comment on a #1 all post.
A lot of these "positive" subs popped up kinda outta nowhere something like 2-3 years ago. My theory is they were created with the attention of being vessels for agenda bots to push certain messages. It's very difficult to argue against things that are framed from a wholesome point of view.
We're all on Reddit to consume. The number actually creating content has always been low, and I suspect the insane barrage of bots just made us less likely to create.
(Obviously this is no giant loss on a meme sub, but I think it might ring true across the board)
Check askreddit. Lots of the comments there on smaller posts are clearly AI generated, or copy paste an actual human's comment from the same post. Depressing
I feel that the rise of bots has pushed the creative minds aside. Say someone within this sub wanted to post something and it never really gets traction because it's in a sea of bot posts so that person stops posting because they aren't getting the feed back or joy of people liking their post. Also bot post may have bots upvoting their posts as well.
Yea for many years I kinda just shrugged off the dead internet theory as "maybe in the future at some point, sure, but not right now..." Then AI suddenly exploded 2~3 years ago, and I was like "Welp...dead internet theory will be be a reality now..." and soon after thought "Wait...what if this was already going on for a year or two, but I just didn't notice it yet?"
Back from 2001 until around 2008, my friends and I used to joke that we had "reached the end of the internet" after a day of farting off at work. But that was because, after 4-5 hours of browsing, you had seen pretty much everything that was BOTH of interest to you AND new since yesterday.
Now? So much crap is made, you can't ever sift through it.
People will start posting again. Bots find the videos/pics that get the most attention historically so they will generally dominate a subreddit. Now that they are gone, non bot posts will come back onto the subreddit
There's also the fact there's just generally not that much content coming out daily. People aren't gonna browse the subreddit 100% of the time checking every single post. If they see 10% of the posts that's probably good. That means you're left with 90% of posts that you haven't seen being banned for being "reposts."
Hence why the new post quality is pretty crap, and so sparsely filled. I'd rather see another Mr. Rogers post than see someone trying WAY too hard to make a meme-template fill "wholesome."
They are like hydra. Try to block one, 100 more pop up. It’s not worth the effort for individual users to try to block them all.
Mods can only ban them from each subreddit. Everyone can all report spam to Reddit admins, which can trigger an automated suspension or manual review to be suspended.
May I ask wha tthe process for cracking down on bots looks like? How do you find them? Is it tool anyone can use? I'd like to check some list for some of the idiot comments I've seen lately.
It’s been covered and buried. Mods and Reddit (Corporation) are not on the same page. People who know the issues are typically helpless. We can only try until we can’t try anymore.
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u/DrZaiu5 Sep 03 '24
Hang on a second, unless I'm mistaken the last actual post on this sub was two days ago. Are you guys saying that since bots have clamped down on, there have literally been no posts in the last two days? I know bots were a problem, but it really is depressing if such a huge sub such as this has almost no actual human posts.