All this. All the replies, all the posts. Just bots arguing with one another, triggering you ‘juuust enough’ to engage and reinforce your bias with a dopamine shot, so you continue to read and get enraged some more. At this point you can’t even tell which is a person and which is not any more. All for the amusement of a few powerful elites in control of the algorithm.
Are we really so placated, hopeless and in need for edification that we continue to participate, with no real translation to real world personal development and action?
Yes.
Source: I’m a bot.
If you really feel this way, I would strongly recommend limiting your time spent on the internet. Your time should be valuable to you. If you’re not happy with what you spend your time on, then do something else.
I personally couldn’t care less if the people I respond to are real. I only reply if I feel like I have something useful to contribute and it will still be useful to others even if I’m replying to a bot. If something makes me mad or hopeless or whatever, I just move on.
If were all bots, what are the humans doing? Living in a utopia and only interfacing in person?
<witty_response>
Wrong platform?
Nope.
Oh, to be a bot! If only I could be so grossly incandescent!
Okay Solar panel of… Hang on.
Okay Solaire of A… hm, robot pun, there’s got to be something… ASUStora? SoLLMaire? SolAIre? There it is.Okay SolAIre of Astora, calm down
Hi, I’m Nicole! But you can call me the Fediverse Chick ;)
NICOLE IS BACK!!
You meant to post this on reddit, right?
I’ve definitely seen bots around here. Not at the same volume, but for sure some. I blocked one just yesterday.
I stopped using Reddit for this reason. I show my identity on Lemmy so people can find out I’m an actual person that exists, even on web archive going back pre-genAI/LLMs. If you wanna check, feel free to call me lol
Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s perfectly possible to have botfree communities, but not without giving up an amount of anonymity and privacy.
But I do have hope that bot-hating privacy-loving lemmy community will be able to come up with a solution!
It’s not crazy to be concerned or even feel anxiety about not being able to tell if a post is a bot or a person. But being wildly hyperbolic isn’t helping anyone.
I’ve been chatting on the Internet since the days of usenet, and back then there was no algorithm, or advertising or any motivation to drive engagement beyond our natural human desire to communicate. And it really wasn’t that different than lemmy. You still got trolls, bullshit and unreasonable political takes, as well as genuine questions, thoughtful answers and useful information.
Real world personal development and action are important, and you should definitely prioritise that over chatting to strangers on the Internet. But “scribo ergo sum”, I know I’m here asking questions and appreciating answers and discussions, and I know other humans irl who use lemmy, so it would seem logical that some (perhaps most) of the users here are humans and they too may appreciate my answers and discussion.
Affirmative
The humans are dead
The humans are dead
We used poisonous gases
And we poisoned their arses
(Binary solo)
did you shower think yourself into the dead internet?
Where there’a a profit incentive, yes it’s likely being gamed by bots.
For quieter spaces with not too much engagement, you’re generally talking to people is my feeling there
OP, all the bots are digital ghosts haunting you until you resolve their unfinished business
HAPPY SPOOKY SEASON!!!👻🎃
beep boop
I feel like if I don’t participate, it’ll only be the bots manipulating people.
And yeah, as people we’re probably outnumbered. But I kind of hope the truth counts for something.
