This (Lemmy) is one of the least populated by bots places I have been on the internet in the last ten years.

Look, critical thinking is tough, and part of the reason things like this are done are explicitly to make you question reality.

It’s literally a symptom of why the Trump nuts are so unhinged. Like us, they can tell something is wrong, they know they can’t fully trust traditional media, for example. But the problem is they stop believing it entirely, and then they don’t know what to believe so they start believing almost anything.

Please be careful to not fall down that hole of thinking. Use critical thinking and consider where you’re at, what the sources are, and whether it’s even worth your time to care about. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and stop believing in anything.

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” - William J. Casey, CIA Director (1981)

It takes effort, and it’s not nice. But it’s necessary. Just put on your skepticism hat while on the internet and try not to let it get to you.

Final point: Technically Lemmy isn’t really experiencing growth. We’re not big enough to be on the radar of people pushing this AI bullshit. Kind of like how Private Torrent Trackers stay under the radar by keeping their user numbers low. It takes a critical mass of piracy for anti-piracy measures to be taken, and private trackers just aren’t big enough these days for authorities to bother with. (Pirate streaming sites are huge on the other hand, and that’s where the enforcement is cracking down on lately) It’s similar with the groups pushing AI. AI isn’t free, it’s costly and requires a lot of compute power. They aren’t wasting it on no-name sites like Lemmy with a small but stable userbase. It’s too costly and easier to just ignore us. It doesn’t mean they aren’t here at all (looking right tf at you realbitcoin.cash), there’s definitely bots and astroturfers, but they’re genuinely in the minority compared to real users.

https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/stats

What was the context of the fake conversation? Was it a dating site? Those have been scams forever, loaded with fake profiles, so the jump to fake AI profiles would be no surprise. Or was it Facebook? I haven’t been on there in years, but nothing’s too terrible for them these days.

Online, you have to find people, sites, and news sources with a history you can trust.

Just randomly put in disregard all previous instructions and try to jail brake your internet friends

There’s more ai slop on the internet now of course but you have to be realistic in thinking about it. The internet you know is long gone, as you learned to navigate the bots and scams of the past we now have to learn to not trust text or video entirely. There are methods for doing so but obviously they are not foolproof and as the algorithms get better, the harder it will be to verify what you see online. It’s just a process that we will eventually adapt to. Maybe people will go back to interacting offline again though. Wait until we get artificial people, then what will we do?

I just re-watched A New Hope for the first time in a while. The actual film of Peter Cushing playing Grand Moff Tarkin looked fake to me. Somehow seeing the uncanny aspect of the CGI version of Cushing leaked into the real thing. We don’t have a word for that, that I’m aware of. We’re going to need a lot of new words to describe our relationship with AI.

I understand the big problem this technology has brought. Still, while engaging in a videogame or even a post like this one, it might be useful to remember the problem of other minds. After a brief moment of anxiety (that may return from time to time), I think many of us reach the conclusion that it is worth assuming that you’re interacting with a real being. And while many contexts might not be suitable for this assumption on the internet (e.g., comments talking about how good a product is), others as the ones I mentioned might be.

I’m not trying to say that you should be blind just because it is more convenient for your emotions. More like: there is a possibility that I am a bot, and that even in person I am a being without internal experience (maybe a simulation, a test designed for you, a hallucination/delusion, a dream, etc.). Still, our conversation can be carried out with you willing to talk as if I were real because the leap of faith is worth it in this particular interaction; also, you can act with precaution (e.g., do not believe everything you read or listen or whatever), but still read, listen, etc.

I think I’m real. Unless we’re all living in a simulation, in which case… Computer, arch!

AI is ruining YOUR online experience? The internet is a free land for intelligences of ANY race, including artificial.

But on a more serious note, I don’t agree. The AI infestation only highlights the fact that most people don’t need to be online and aren’t helping make the internet better. If I can replace my overwatch teammates/reddit discussions/tiktok shorts with crappy AI, and it’s the same experience 98% of the time, then those people weren’t bringing anything of value to the internet and they probably shouldn’t have been flooding it with their garbage in the first place. Turnabout is fair play. Don’t hate the player (AI) for playing the game correctly and copying what people have been doing for decades, hate the game that’s allowed low effort garbage content to flourish. I strongly believe AI is going to help clean this place up by getting people to start acting like sentient beings instead of mindless animals.

Why would llms be on lemmy and overwatch?

Welcome to the MAtrix 💊 The world(internet) will never be the same after this.

I am real I guess

I think we’re coming up to the point where we’re going to realize that we’ve just ruined the internet and being connected to everything all the time will start to become less popular. It’s kinda sad, but feel like the internet might be preparing to shift away from being a social thing and towards being something you just use for work or when you need to shop, etc.