[echelon]

> So a nefarious actor could deploy a fleet of AI bots to comment in various internet forums, to both argue down dissenting opinions, as well as build the impression of consensus for whatever point they are arguing.

And the dissenting opinion will be able to do the same.

Twelve year old kids will be running swarms of these for fun, and the technology will be so widely proliferated that everyone will encounter it daily.

"Is that photoshopped?" will morph into "Is that AI?"

It'll be so commonplace, it'll cease to be magic.

[appplication]

I don’t disagree, but fools will still be fooled. And there are a lot of fools. I do wonder what it means for the future of the internet. I don’t think net good is coming out of this.

[felipeerias]

It will become even harder to find trustworthy content online. There will be lots more rabbit holes for people to fall into once it becomes commonplace to fake not just individual users but whole communities.

I really wonder what this will do to human culture as a whole, in the long term. So far we have relied on cultural artefacts and practices being mostly the work of other humans (directly or through tools). We are about to find out what happens when that is no longer the case.

[nradov]

Centuries ago, some people had the same concerns about the printing press. If "fools" fell for religious heresies then their souls could be damned to hell for all eternity, at least according to leading experts at the time.

[thatguy0900]

Realistically it means Facebook style log in on all sites worth commenting on. The only way to prevent legions of bots, and the only way govs can keep enemy psyops at bay, will be online persona's tied to real life identitys.

[j16sdiz]

Looking at the WorldCoin discussion on HN. Some people are willing to sell their online accounts tied to real life identities.

[bombolo]

But fb is full of bots

[bombolo]

> And the dissenting opinion will be able to do the same.

if they have the money

> Twelve year old kids

pfft

[echelon]

Shortbets 5 years. This is so going to happen.