Post by Rich Lepoutre on
With apologies to the Moderators on Team Peepso, I was going to add this Comment to a previous Post, but then decided that it had been some time since those Posts and that the issue was important enough to raise again in a stand-alone Post. I apologize, as well for this Post"s length. Please stay with me as I think it warrants additional context in the Spring of 2022. The issue is bots... and now bots on fire. First, let me acknowledge prior posts by B2M Digital and others, and thanks for the suggestions made by Predrag Ristic (which clearly make sense). We are about to launch our platform and could not be happier about Peepso, its constant progress, and these suggestions. That said - Team Peepso, I believe the issue of bots now has the potential and even, likelihood, to undermine so many of our best efforts on the Peepso platform. I do not think I am being hyperbolic. In 2022, there is a new variable that has become very real and is out in the open for any and all to use and/or abuse. I am speaking of GPT-3. The pace of GPT-3 and other AI "generative writing", that also allows for so many new, "no-code" websites generating and programming) engines are freakish. GPT-3 is out in the public domain and if you have seen what it can do (based on 165 billion language parameters) and you understand that GPT-4 is right around the corner, you come to realize this... The bots of just 3 years ago which could mechanically push content with a "force-multiplying" effect are now combining with the ability to generate perfectly sensical (even clever) content, complete with images, links, and more. So, when it comes to any reasonable form of moderation, we now have the proverbial match and a can of gasoline to deal with. For the sake of analogy, I offer this - if Peepso is the diary with its many Pages of digital paper, written and shared by genuine participants, now imagine that the combined force of both bot-generated posts and almost indistinguishable from real human-generated content, is propagated in what amounts to a firehose of false, or misleading sharing and promotion. And to be clear, I am not speaking of what my version of "facts" or someone else's version of the "facts". Rather, imagine a place where there is so much noise... a firehose of AI-generated Post, Comment, and Share salad, such that it cannot be logistically moderated and Members or Participant's start to question the value and the return on their time and effort in participating. Trust is at risk then. No matter what kind of Community you run on Peepso, there is a fundamental metric of "currency" that drives social media. That "currency" is not necessarily money as most of us recognize. More often than not is the "currency" of human exchange that we all value to some extent or another. And if you will permit this old guy (I have been in this space since the early 90s when Google was called "Backrub" and The Zuck was in Junior High School) this kind of skullduggery is not limited to Peepso Communities that advocate a cause/POV or are politically based. A business or entity-based Peepso instance could be assaulted this way for competitive reasons... or no reason at all. There is no lack of evidence that show us that social media brings out some pretty bad, stupid, and even criminal behavior. I am pretty sure we all saw Star Wars... that's the reality. I realize (as a Developer myself) that this question is a bit of a hot potato to drop on Team Peepso's lap. Team, you are focused on improving the feature-set and functionality of Peepso and we love that. But I do think there is a real and substantial vector of disruption in this matter of bots combined with AI. It's a monster in the making. I should add that I think this is something the WordPress Team ought (and could well be) working on, as well. I do hope that some baked-in, programmatic functionality will begin to work its way into Peepso/WordPress because this shalestorm is coming our way. A failure to … Read more