Published on 12, July, 2020
Perhaps I am naive.
Perhaps we can have a new "rule" making evident forms of non-human AI here as an offence.
I don't like what I see. Or perhaps the Genie is well and truly loose, for all of us, everywhere....unless in person, face to face?
I like face to face, one on one. Clear unavoidable transparency of reality.
We seem to be inundated with bots at the moment.
We get the obvious ones where they leave a link to some business or virus etc.
Then we get the ones that seem vaguely relevant but are responding to threads where the last post was several years ago.
Then we get the ones that start a thread, with a whole dissertation contained within, that is related to autism, but the 'person' just joined to say this one thing and then never returns.
It's irritating to say the least.
The ability to join the forum needs to be made much harder with proof of ID or the 'I'm not a bot' sort of thing - Captcha I think.
I agree with something needing to be done about bots, but please not more proof of ID. Proof of ID feels like a runaway train, not everyone has the right sort of proof or the ability to send it, so it will disenfranchise people who often already feel disenfranchised in a new way. I don't like Captcha, but it would be better than ID, but with captcha would there be a way for partially sighted people to still use the site?
Ian said:I don't take any of the views posted here at face value, I want to be able to assess the credibility of the writer. This is even more critical with the emergence of AI and bots.
I have tended to take the posts at face value (apart from the really obvious bots) but with recent events on the forum, including posters who seem to be deliberately agitating, I've become less confident, which is a shame.
I have always queried anonymity. I respect that sometimes people post on sensitive, personal topics and may not wish to reveal their identity, but equally I feel it helps to know that you are dealing with a real person. Anyone here can find my identity using the information in my profile and about three mouse clicks. I don't take any of the views posted here at face value, I want to be able to assess the credibility of the writer. This is even more critical with the emergence of AI and bots.