If the truth is in between, it’s because we’re arguing different things.
Not necessarily! Sometimes the truth or a greater understanding can emerge even from two or more seemingly paradoxical or conflicting statements or ideas.
Thesis + antithesis = synthesis (which is likely still an inkling of the total truth, but nonetheless)
You make valid points, but I feel the truth lies somewhere in between your comment and the people in the chain that you are responding to.
I just don’t think it’ll ever be anything close to 99% effective given that this is a website. I explained why previously.
Thanks for engaging though - I do understand and appreciate the necessity of bot prevention and I’ll be sure to keep an eye out as a user.
As another user suggested to me in the past, there could be government-run social media that requires ID at sign-up. Maybe a service like that would appeal to you if our government (apologies if you aren’t US-based) wasn’t labeling certain speech as terrorism.
I trust instance owners and software developers to sort this out in a privacy-respecting way. If a specific instance breaks my trust, I might find it necessary to block it.
I don’t support violations of privacy and I appreciate some level of pseudonymity and anonymity in social media.
Who is going to vet the vetters? What if they become compromised or were compromised from the beginning? What recourse is there for users if there are data breaches?
If there was an actor behind a handful of accounts that are mostly run by LLMs (which mimic human input and interaction) it’d be easily viable for state-level or professional actors to pull such an operation off at scale and successfully manipulate a small platform like the fediverse - especially with some level of manual input or confirmation. Even taking believable selfies of real people that fit the profile is possible and can be anticipated if the actor or the organization behind them are resourceful.
I’m not entirely against instance-level detection that attempts to understand user patterns and prevent or flag abuse to mods and admins, but I do believe that humanized input and interaction can already be effectively emulated and will only advance as time passes.
I believe that increased scrutiny of users in a centralized manner is a privacy violation. I picked my instance intentionally and I give some level of trust to the instance owners, but I wouldn’t consent to them (or the software they choose to use) handing over my PII or usage patterns to a third-party group that suspects me (even through purely automated mechanisms). I would discontinue using the service in such a scenario.
To support my point that bot detection is mostly futile on the fediverse, I’d like to draw your attention to a parallel to this situation in gaming with humanized aimbots - which are already incredibly viable and are implemented in a variety of ways.
There are usually actual human actors guiding input to some degree, but the aimbot/etc. is designed to mimic human input to achieve believable results. I believe this technology could still advance quite a bit and there are new methods popping up as every day passes.
The key difference between gaming and the fediverse, is that the fediverse is not software running on our computers at the kernel-level (as with most anti-cheat) - it’s a website running in a browser.
Ultimately, I feel it boils down to just blocking instances that you disagree with the operation of to curate your experience - which is already available on Lemmy.
I disagree with the notion that we need a centralized list or that such a list is desirable. Again - I trust instances to sort this out.
As LLMs and deepfaking technology advance, the likely result will be completely undetectable bots that effectively mimic human behavior, even with advanced and potentially automated defenses.
See: https://theintercept.com/2024/10/17/pentagon-ai-deepfake-internet-users/
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to have to e.g. take a selfie in a specific way to be able to use the fediverse and have the ability to reach a broad audience - just because I am hypothetically suspected. Such a list will also likely chill participation, as an unintended effect.
None of that data proves anything besides potentially identifying bots, as you suggest.
It’s just an exercise in group paranoia - and would likely be abused by actual state/professional actors attempting to silence users/create bubbles.
Personally, I trust that the mods and admins will sort the bots/vote manipulation out. As for the bad actors, we can counter their propaganda with our good faith participation and our efforts to lead others to the truth.
You’re suggesting a public blacklist with thorough vetting, I just thought it’d be fair for you to step forward in such a hypothetical scenario. But you’re right, it’s not feasible - nobody can definitively prove that they are an independent actor.
Would you volunteer to be vetted first?
Gotcha, I suppose I was reading into this a bit too much:
pick an instance that is located close to them geographically
Definitely agree with your idea in this case.
As a US-based person, just no. It is not desirable to host anything here or to trust any US-based service for a number of reasons.
Thank you for pushing back here.
It’s very important to understand that the people we are currently giving power want us to feel doomed, hopeless, powerless, disassociated, confused, angry, hateful, and disconnected from the rest of humanity.
The people wielding power over us want to dominate every aspect of the human experience by putting us all into bubbles.
They want us all to be divided in a manner similar to how language once divided us in the past…and they have a litany of tools and strategies to bring this about — e.g. with AI, social media, algorithms that dictate what we see, partisan media, anti-science denialism, the use of religion and spirituality as a vehicle to manipulate broad groups of people, and so forth.
The people in power aren’t truly winning, but they are convinced they will survive society collapsing unscathed and firmly in power. Don’t let them believe that they have already won and give them reasons to rest easy with your defeat and doomerism (or more accurately; your passivity and subservience).
Okay, now split into at least 4 different companies and compete with each other - if we want the illusion of a free market and competition to exist in the minds of those living under capitalism.
They could just call it what it is: an astroturfing “business” revolving around fraud, spam, and abuse.
a legitimate new business
Interesting framing by Futurism.
It would be wise to make openly manipulating social media systematically (with or without AI) illegal, immediately.
Social media is for real people to freely engage and share their viewpoints, not for bot farms and other forms of organized astroturfing to shape opinion by appearing as independently-affiliated real people.
Discourse is an incredibly valuable tool for humanity, and we can’t let this be taken away from us - especially by those making a killing off of it or those paying for the privilege.
I mostly agree - people love to overcomplicate certain terms. Theft is theft.
The only edge case to this is theft to survive/have a basic level of dignity, which I believe deserves special recognition. It’s a problem for our society to solve and it is within our means to do so.
When somebody lives in extreme lack, hunger, thirst, untreated illness, and/or an inability to provide for themselves or those they care for - they physically can’t think clearly. They also likely see a society that does not care about them. It hardens their heart.
People living in lack, worrying about their survival or basic dignity, is not desirable for a healthy society.
Are you personally invested in the AI/LLM space? I’m wondering why you chose to engage with very few of my arguments. Is your account a troll account? If you’re not trolling: re-read. I will not engage further until you adequately address my points.
I was pretty clear: there is no intelligence. AGI is an absolute pipe dream and it will also be a far cry from actual intelligence if you look into it. Hallucinations won’t be fixed unless the technology evolves - adding more GPU power won’t be able to fix it.
The copyright theft is an extreme issue, regardless your hand-waving of it. Copyright law reform is not perceivably on the table. Major companies are caught red-handed stealing and these companies have no intention of compensating the rights-holders they stole from.
The fediverse needs a button to report accounts to instance owners for being obvious bots, like OP. Flagging suspected bot accounts with a flair sounds like it’d be a good thing too.
There is no way that there is a real person behind this account and this seems to be a part of a larger trend.