First of all, I realize the title today is not crystal-clear, given the font in which my blog appears.
"AI" in this case = uppercase A (1st letter of the alphabet) followed by uppercase I (9th letter of the alphabet) and as many folks nowadays are aware, it stands for Artificial Intelligence.
It is not "A-One", as the new U.S. Secretary of Education and former wrestling promoter pronounced it repeatedly in a recent interview on AI in the classroom:
It's not "Al", either - the shortened form of names such as "Alan" or "Alex" or "Allison", immortalized in "You can call me Al", Paul Simon's catchy tune from 1986:
And after that painfully long introduction, all I wanted to say was that I've started noticing what I suspect are AI-generated comments on this blog and others. (I delete them, which is why you don't see them here.)
They are perfectly pleasant comments, but do not contain an original thought. They are a neat summary of your blog post.
Have you noticed them too?
Not yet...but I'd mark them as spam....
ReplyDeleteGood call :)
DeleteWe had an Education minister in Alberta with the same breadth of knowledge as the one in the US. You can actually get mugs with some of his groaners printed on them. AI is a flamin' nuisance always wanting to tell me stuff-as if I would believe it.
ReplyDeleteI don't trust the results of AI programs because they are only as good as the inputs they receive or are trained on. And how is the average user supposed to know what those inputs or that training is? That adds up to a big Nope from me.
DeleteOne could ask why they even bother, and Chris Hayes has postulated that attention is the new currency, so perhaps they are trying to automate their way into some of that?
ReplyDeleteThe bots are thick on political blogs, even though it is a bit tricky to tell them from run of the mill consumers of right wing propaganda. Their spelling and grammar tends to be better and their content seems utterly lacking.
Most of the bloggers I read do moderate them out, but one has a strictly unmoderated policy for comments (the better to find out what the opposition is actually thinking) and all I can say about them is that they have learned the dialects of English well for native Russian speakers...
When I worked at the Sizzler Steak House, they had a house branded sauce that was a knock-off of A1, ad as I remember it, it wasn't bad.
The way it sits right now, artificial intelligence is still no match for natural stupidity, and neither of them are getting much better.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
As you stated, the lack of content is a big giveaway. I think you're right, too, about the attention being part of the reason for doing this. Some percentage, at least, of other commenters will click on their name which brings eyes to their blogs, which drives up their stats - and if they are monetized, which many of them are, it also drives up their income.
DeleteI love your last sentence! How true.
From one MJ, if it's the same as mine. I've begun deleting her comments now.
ReplyDeleteI should have kept the comments in my spam folder. I can't remember what the names of the commenters were. As Doug said above, the lack of original content is a giveaway, as is the request for you to visit their blog.
DeleteMost of my comments are from bloggers I know. This A to Z month, I've noticed a couple of new ones but they are also doing the A to Z.
ReplyDeleteNow you've said it, I'll be watching.
The content of the comment is the best guide, in my opinion. You are getting real people, judging from that.
DeleteYes, I see them once in a while. they are quickly deleted.
ReplyDeleteThey have a different "feel" to them - they are just a condensed version of the post, regurgitated back as a comment.
DeleteI have the same MJ as Andrew and I think another one this morning who I marked as spam and deleted right away.
ReplyDeleteThey aren't hard to spot if you know what to watch for.
DeleteI haven't, but will keep a watch out for them. Thanks for the heads up.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they are a threat or a scam in the usual sense of the word, but they aren't from people who are reading and thinking about your post, either :)
DeleteCan't say I have. From time to time I get comments that just say "please read my post" (identical each time), always from the same login, but I think it's just a very unimaginative person trying to promote his or her blog. I delete them since they're not relevant to the post they're commenting on. If I saw something that was definitely AI I'd delete it, but if I'm not sure I'd rather give them the benefit of the doubt in case it's a real person.
ReplyDeleteThanks for alerting people to the problem.
You're being nicer about it than I have the patience to be :) But I oppose AI on principle. The "tone" of AI was what got my attention. It's not malicious, but it is vacuous, mindless.
DeleteI have noticed them, too. How lazy some people are!
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's it. And I think it's also a quicker way to leave comments that will then drive readers to their blog (which is usually monetized).
DeleteYes. I know exactly who you're talking about and I have the same suspicion, but I'm not sure.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't a single commenter, in my case. But the robotic tone of the comments was what made me suspicious.
DeleteI've noticed those comments, too.
ReplyDeleteThey just have a different feel to them. And if you click back to their blog, they aren't saying anything original there either.
DeleteArgh! It's definitely artificial; but I draw the line at calling it "intelligence". I've had a few of those types of comments on my blog, too; but Wordpress seems to be better at filtering them out before they get published.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely not intelligent, not yet anyhow :) Interesting that Wordpress may be better at weeding them out.
DeleteI haven't noticed AI comments yet, nor have I (insert eye roll here) noticed any A1 comments. *shakes head in disbelief*
ReplyDeleteThe A1 jokes and memes are now legion :)
DeleteThere are a few I’ve been questioning. I will do the same now too.
ReplyDeleteI don't like to be rude to anyone by accident but I'll admit to quick impatience with bogus comments!
DeleteOnly the best people, he said. Only the geniuses, he said. But really, how could he assess that? Yes, I'm being snarky. I couldn't believe that A1 sauce moment myself.
ReplyDeleteUnreal, isn't it? Everything is backward. Everything good is getting gutted. Everything bad is getting elevated. It's distressing beyond belief.
DeleteI think I have had one or two ... always from bloggers you never heard of before, and who shares no common interest. I always thought it was just a fluke, but it might be AI at work.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed "no common interest" comments for a long time, but lately the ones I'm suspicious of are longer and more fluent comments - basically a brief summary of the post itself.
DeleteAnd an afterthougth. The ones just saying Nice post, Please visit my blog - I have them too. Always the same, but a real human being just trying to get views. As you say the AI ones are "vacuous, mindless".
ReplyDeleteYes - the "please visit my blog" comments, looking for views - I *think* these are monetized blogs.
DeleteYou can always tell artificial comments they are fucking bland as toast
ReplyDeleteIndeed
DeleteDear friend Jenny I am receiving such comments on my posts since few years and this is why I have started to use the comment moderation system. Yes they lack something genuine and easily noticed by their mechanical writing.I sent them to spam option.
ReplyDeleteI am grateful for moderation option to avoid them on my posts.
Sending much love to you and hugs and best wishes 🥰♥️
Comment moderation is a good tool to deal with this. Hugs to you too, baili :)
DeleteNothing like a summary of my blog but mostly people wanting to sell something. I also get a guy that just tells me lovely blog about once a month.
ReplyDeleteI think those might be just folks wanting clicks on their monetized blogs, but I could be wrong. The difference between those and what I have been seeing is that the ones I think are AI are *exactly* a summary of the blog post. Just like the AI summaries you get if you do a search online. Very pleasant, no misspellings or grammatical errors, but very unoriginal in every sense.
DeleteSo far, I haven't seen any AI on my blog or others (except Yorkshire Pudding's AI art work)
ReplyDeleteI have seen some but I use the delete function quite liberally these days.
ReplyDelete