Bot Accounts, Social Media, and AI-Written Posts

[Punished Obesity]

(Pre-Disclaimer: Hey all, I'm fairly new to the forums here so if this topic is something that's been discussed a thousand times over in previous threads, please understand by no means am I in the know here.)

 

Lately I've been seeing a lot of discussion around AI algorithms that can apparently almost perfectly mimic human writing and vocal speech patterns, like ChatGPT for example.

 

Initially, I've had mixed feelings on how these programs will affect us; I don't think by any means are they going to replace people in the creative industry for example. However, what I have started noticing more is the prevalence of fake bait accounts within places like Youtube comments, blog-posts, discussion threads, etc.

 

I know bot accounts have been around since the beginning of the internet; but with the existence of these AIs and the fact that anyone can use them for various purposes, it's starting to make me wonder how long will it take before social-media is completely overrun with non-existent users. I remember reading a post on 4chan a while ago about how someone was using Amazon IP servers to host bot accounts that would engage in entirely artificial conversations on threads with both real users and other bot accounts. As of right now, it's somewhat easy to tell apart a fake account from a real person just by how uncanny and inconsistent the writing in the comments are, but it's obvious enough this technology is only going to get more convincing as time elapses. 

 

There's also the proposition that one day governments are going to force people to use a universal internet ID system in order to discern them from bot accounts, which only makes the future seem even more grim and unnerving.

[Mira]

Call me naïve but I doubt future developments in AI's conversational skills will really end up influencing public opinion or quarterly reports that much more than the imperfect bot accounts and various devious marketing tactics that already exist currently. People are already way more adept at predicting and gaming human behaviour than many realize.

 

I'm actually more pessimistic about the future of the creative industry myself. I don't think we're gonna see a decline in the demand for human-created art "for art's sake", but creative jobs for producing art with more generic purposes (graphic design, stock photography, incidental music, etc.) will definitely be at risk of replacement now that far cheaper alternatives are quickly being perfected; at the very least the market for it will become vastly more competitive and less lucrative, and it's not like artists in that business are generally raking in millions at the moment anyway.