CAPTCHAs and sign‑up quizzes annoy real people and barely slow down determined bots. As the fediverse grows, we need smarter, more humane defences, ones that don’t push away genuine newcomers. What creative, non‑intrusive ideas do you have? Trust‑based vouching, proof‑of‑humanity protocols, behavioural signals… what feels both effective and aligned with the open social web? I’m building a social media platform and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
Having manual account approvals combined with a short questionnaire asking why they want to join and which communities interest them has been extremely effective on my instance so far, as most bots reveal themselves at this step.
Survivorship bias. How do you guarantee that you don’t have a few dozen accounts that were set up by a human who then collected the credentials and setup an automated OpenClaw-like thing system?
I didn’t and can’t guarantee that, I merely said that most bots reveal themselves with the technique I described.
I suspect that using human applications to get an AI through the door will be somewhat uncommon, as hiring people to do that for profit seeking reasons is likely not terribly viable, as a human can only write so many applications per day, and that labor isn’t free, I just don’t see the economics working out. Bot spam is likely only profitable when it is entirely automated.
But if a human specifically targeted an instance in that way, that certainly could happen. I suspect that at least for now, other users may be able to suss-out a bot that gets through, as they still have some tell-tale signs they give off in their writing style, but it’s plausible that at some point they will be able to blend in seamlessly. At that point, we’ll need to devise new ways to weed them out if they begin to take over.
But what if the bots are writing posts and comments that make it hard to tell if they are human or not and the content is useful/beneficial to the community?
I already answered the first part your question at the end of my previous comment. As to the idea that they become more useful/beneficial than actual human members, I personally find actually interacting with other humans more fulfilling than interacting with a machine in a social context, regardless of how ‘useful’ they are.
If AI gets to the point where it’s all pervasive, indistinguishable from real people, and we somehow cannot devise a way of weeding them out of online communities, I’d honestly probably just stop participating socially in public internet spaces, and instead restrict myself to private invite-only communities that do more intense vetting to ensure only humans are in that space, or participate in and help build up local mesh-networks, where people can actually meet up with who they talk to online.
That would probably mean a lot less time spent online overall, and instead going outside and finding connection with people in real life.
I think you are missing what I am trying to say: there is a significant probability we already are at this point, and I don’t think we can beat this cat-and-mouse game. If you are serious about you mean, then the only reasonable course of action is to get out of the race entirely. If more people think like you, then the scale will tips even further in favor of the bots.
All of this to say, if are so AI averse that the mere possibility of having AI around should be enough for all of us to drop this whole thing here and go back to connection only in the physical world. In a way, I wouldn’t be against the idea (maybe because I look at the internet as a source of utility and not to fulfill any emotional/social need) but on the other hand it would suck precisely because the internet can be quite useful as a tool, but its utility depends on having people around participating.
Most low-cost and primitive bots. It costs nothing for ChatGPT to pretend to be a human in text. Are you sure they aren’t still there, lurking? Look up survivor bias.
I remember encountering my first request to write an essay in order to join an instance. I was flabbergasted and chose an instance without this madness and it appeared this instance was shadowbanned by major ones. Was close to giving up on Fediverse at this point.
They are still quite evident in the way they construct their messages, and of course any em-dash usage is a big giveaway.
Someday they’ll likely be able to answer those questions more convincingly, but right now it works for the most part.
Em dashes are the correct way to type—substituting them with hyphens is a typographical mistake.
Also, look up Human or Not game.
“You’re in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down, and see a tortoise. It’s crawling towards you. You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back…”
Tortoise? What’s a tortoise?