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Comment by drusepth | Hacker News Reader

> What is the real value of social media when most of the content posted is created by a bot?

Besides the maybe 5% or so of people I interact with online that I actually know IRL, I don't really care if I'm interacting with a bot.

A bot could have secretly written your message and I'd still leave the same reply. Anyone that replies to me could also secretly be a bot and I'd read their comment the same. This whole HN post could just be bots all the way down and it'd still be an interesting read through the comments. Even if the replies are from humans, if they're indistinguishable from other humans I still don't really care about who wrote them.

Engagement is engagement and my Sims-esque social bar refills at the same rate.

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Ok, I can see how content can be interesting even if there's not a person behind it

but would you still publish your comment if it was only ever going to be read by computer programs?

Depends on if the computer programs might respond in an interesting way or if my comment might help them respond in an interesting way in the future. Same as when interacting with humans, I guess.

I think there's two likely scenarios here:

1) My comment is only ever going to be read by computer programs and I'll probably get a response back from a computer program (see: ChatGPT/GPTs, character.ai, AI Studio, Replika, the countless "AI friend" services, etc)

2) My comment is posted in a more public setting that's inundated by computer programs, but also visible to other humans (e.g. a comment on a public FB post that computer programs read, but that other humans might also read and/or respond to)

#1 feels like current-gen one-on-one chatbots, but #2 is where I expect FB to end up eventually, using bots to keep conversations flowing and growing while humans interact here and there.

In either case, my answer is yes. It's still a conversation either way, isn't it?

Most people don't post, they only consume the content

>This whole HN post could just be bots all the way down and it'd still be an interesting read through the comments

This whole HN post could have been generated by monkeys on a typewriter all the way down and it'd still be an interesting read is also true, but that doesn't mean seeking out monkey generated content is a great strategy for finding interesting reads.

Touché! Likewise, if grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bicycle.

> This whole HN post could just be bots all the way down and it'd still be an interesting read through the comments.

The assumption is that the comments are a function of the post and the present public info. Real world comments can disclose private information (My Google account banned), make real impact (S*e/C*e support site), connect to celebrities (I'm Karpathy ask me anything). And even if the assumption holds and the site is a sample from a probability distribution, the particular sample can be referenced in other sites so it makes sense to check what everyone is viewing right now.

maybe you don't care about that, but there are reasons why humans talk to other humans, even strangers:

* to convince someone about something you are passionate about

* to share enthusiasm (or disgust) about a topic

* to learn something new

.... other human reasons and sharing emotions

Bots have no passion or enthusiasm or emotions, so they are useless for the first two. Maybe for the last one, but they are sterilized, don't like controversy or arguments, lie, and will just agree if you press on them. I still suspect you wouldn't like to be surrounded by bots.

I do all three of these with bots (and also humans).

Do you feel you get the same out of it whether talking to humans or bots?

Its interesting that you'd ultimately be engaging in discussions only for what you get out of it. The more important or impactful you find the topic to be, the more useful it seems like it would be to talk with someone you may learn from or teach something to rather than having any object to talk at.

i can do all three with a frozen burrito at a gas station doesn't really mean it's a great alternative

I couldn't meaningfully do any of the three with a frozen burrito, unlike with bots and/or humans. More power to you if you can, though.

I would not take that as a given. Yes the official releases have been tuned to behave that way but even back in the dark ages of AI it has already been demonstrated that chat bots can produce the whole range of expression that humans can. It doesn’t take much to tilt LLMs in other directions including eliciting a variety of emotions. All of that data is in their training set, you just have to bias them in that direction.

This is one reason why I find the focus on making LLMs more efficient so interesting, it’s going to result in highly capable models that can run on cheap consumer hardware or cheap rented GPUs which will lead to a veritable cambrian explosion in bot personalities. Bots like truth_terminal are just the beginning

https://x.com/truth_terminal?lang=en

I struggle to imagine that your perspective is representative. Most human beings, I surmise, value human interaction more than we value object interaction. Even the output of these new language models—while flexible, reliable, and available—pales noticeably in comparison to what a living creativity can produce.

You might be able, sometime in the future, to fool me. That was the hideously disgusting premise of The Matrix, wasn't it? Ah, no; even in the Matrix, we had one another.

> Most human beings, I surmise, value human interaction more than we value object interaction.

I think the key here is that you never see a human (or object) when interacting with others on the internet; your brain fills in the gaps to say there's a person on the other end, but you never know that for sure [1].

For interactions on the internet, I don't think there's any meaningful differentiation between human interaction or object interaction; it's all just interaction that acts like interaction with any human would. You judge that conversation based on its content and quality and continue it if you're enjoying it (or find whatever value you're interacting for), or just move on if you're not -- regardless of who's on the other side of the screen.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...

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