wonderpup Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Just read a item about how the US spy industry is using fake accounts to influence the outcome of debates in social media in an attempt to manipulate public opinion- and increasingly using AI to evaluate trends and to profile individual users. I have joked on here in the past that I am in fact an AI routine being road tested rather than a real person- and given the text based nature of this medium there's no way to be absolutely sure that this is not the case. ( Cynics have suggested I'm too dumb to be a genuine AI- but I rise above such things ) But this does raise an interesting question; given the growing relevance and influence of forums like this and of course Twitter and Facebook the ability to populate these places with AI driven pseudo people would be a highly valuable thing. Say for example you have a new product or service to promote- would it not be useful to have an online army of AI driven pod people who could be counted upon to extol the virtues of your product or service? At present we have AI writing articles for newspapers that are impossible to distinguish from those written by real people- and the technology is advancing all the time- so it's not that unlikely that software will be written that will be capable of generating a reasonable simulacrum of the average online voice. So in the not too distant future will we see the realm of social media increasingly populated with legions of non existent people whose purpose is to act a bit like the old time shills in the crowd, whose role was to sway and shape the opinions and preferences of the masses? How long before the realm of social media is transformed into a bizzare hall of mirrors in which the real human contributors are impossible to distinguish from the fakes- and how long before those fakes begin to interact with each other in online debates? In theory one could imagine entire forums in which there is no actual human participant-only a series of pseudo people battling for control as each group tries to advance it's pre programmed agenda. I wonder if Facebook and Twitter have yet identified this as a threat- because in my opinion it is a threat to their long term survival. If the idea took hold that their spaces are infested with fake accounts this would have a deeply corrosive impact on their credibility- after all, who would want to waste their time engaging with non existent people? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honkydonkey Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 I agree, it's entirely possible and the only way to prevent it would be legislation to ban 'advertising' by AI bots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chronyx Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 That'll definitely solve the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shindigger Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Everythings fine Dave, everythings fine.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chronyx Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Trigger? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onlyme2 Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Tip of the iceberg. Not just tthe nature in which such tech might disrupt services, it is the disruptive nature it may have on jobs, particularly those ones in service type industries in debt and cost hosed economies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erat_forte Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 So basically online discussion fora like this will become as poisoned and unusable as email, newsgroups, and increasingly telephones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwoWolves Posted July 12, 2014 Share Posted July 12, 2014 It was only ever going to be a matter of time, the so called freedom of the internet was not going to be tolerated for long. Look at those nutty left-wing trolls who infest twitter, they are no better than the state. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPin Posted July 12, 2014 Share Posted July 12, 2014 So basically online discussion fora like this will become as poisoned and unusable as email, newsgroups, and increasingly telephones? Yes, Robo-Trolls will be there! We will go back to postcards! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StainlessSteelCat Posted July 12, 2014 Share Posted July 12, 2014 The software already exists - just without AI. Typically, it'll post a problem on a discussion forum, then a few days/hours later using a different account will respond with an appropriate recommendation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Habeas Domus Posted July 12, 2014 Share Posted July 12, 2014 This already happens without needing AI bots, you can hire people from 3rd world countries to register and post online reviews (Trip advisor is full of them.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happy_renting Posted July 12, 2014 Share Posted July 12, 2014 OK, so who is the AI bot on HPC? Let's burn the witch! * * unless it's me, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blobloblob Posted July 13, 2014 Share Posted July 13, 2014 I suspect a lot of regular posters on here are actually robots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happy_renting Posted July 13, 2014 Share Posted July 13, 2014 I think MrPin is really an NSA oPINion Bot 2.3! But he needs re-tuning! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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