this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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Fedigrow
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That's my initial inclination, but I could see value in some conversation starter service, even a hot-take posting bot to get a back and forth going started with humans.
We have all seen the conversations where someone drops a hot-take, starts a huge argument and walks away... a bot could do that, and give people a anchor for content.
I'm not saying I approve of this, just that I see it having some utility in some scenarios.
I can see some utility in that. But here's how I, personally, view bots on this (or really any) platform:
I'll scroll and see a post that's interesting. Look at the comment button, and it's got one or two comments. Nice! Potential conversation starter. Click into post, and it's a bot-generated summary, Piped link, MBFC lookup (that's the bot I don't hate as much), and/or some other tone-deaf bot take. Disappointment ensues.
"Well, I don't have anything to say on this yet, so I guess I'll check back later" is typically how that goes. Other times, I'll start a thread and usually get some replies going. In either case, the bot has added no value to the experience. (I do not like bot-generated summaries; that's a whole other topic though lol)
Can't say I've never dropped a hot take and bailed, but sometimes the replies just aren't worth responding to :shrug: lol. Though, I usually do try to reply to anyone who makes the effort to respond (and in good faith).
To me, bot submissions just give the illusion of content and activity but lack substance. Yeah, they could be conversation starters, but more often than not, they're just extra noise to tune out. I have no interest in having a conversation with a bot. The only words I have ever or will ever speak to a bot is "let me speak to a human" lol.
Your right of course, this bot I spoke with in the post denied they were a bot, for 3 messages! Gas lighting? Astro turfing?
Honestly, if their message wasn't totally tone deaf, and 5 months too late, and referencing context in a cross-post but not the local post, I might have just thought they were doing a bad human take. i.e. the overlap between the dumbest human and the smartest bear is large. So this is pretty close to confusing me as a bad human take
In my experience it denied being a bot because you went against it's prompt.
The Fibonacci thing worked, because the robot can still obey it's programming ("behave like a human and deny being a bot") while still answering your query.
That's a really good point, I need some more proof of bot prompts to keep im my library shibboleths
Do keep in mind that that will likely stop working on the future, like counting fingers.