I’ve dealt with this particular bot problem as a mod. Noticing the pattern early on was easy because they always had posts on TEMU subreddits. Now that those subs are banned, it’s harder.
Comment length. Their comments are always less than two lines long.
Tone. They always contain at least one exclamation point, and tend to have a tone that I’d say is “cheery to the point it’s offputting.”
Context. Reading them, a lot of the time you’ll ask “did they even read what they’re replying to?” The comment seems related, but directly misses the main point.
History. Look at the rest of their comments. If more than one ends in two emojis, they’re definitely part of this particular bot network.
You used commas, capitalization, and periods here. Therefore you are a bot exposing yourself!
I don’t usually drop punctuation unless I’m on text message or Discord. Still used to that Reddit norm and sticking to the norm of using regular punctuation isn’t one I take issue with, especially on a site based around reading other peoples’ comments and writing responses.
Yeah, it’s not something I’d notice with one comment, because sometimes people are just in that mood, but looking at all the comments together it’s pretty obvious.
As for point #3…a lot of people on reddit have poor reading comprehension.
Okay, or maybe they’re bots, but FFS, how do you tell the difference? A lot of people have short attention spans. (See the prevalence of TLDR.) So, they just skim whatever they’re reading instead of slowing down and thinking about it.
Wow, alright. Today I learned my neurodivergent ways of communicating online make me sound like a bot. On one hand, booo. On the other, well I did always want to become a robot-human hybrid so… win?
Nah, I scrolled through your recent comments and you’re fine. The description above is sort of close, but not quite – it’s more like every comment is syrupy sweet aggressively cheerful and unnaturally pleased about everything. Lots of overly familiar terms of endearment (friend, buddy, fellow Redditor, etc.). It also has a subtle rhythm – generally reacting to the parent post/comment, adding a friendly observation or two, and wrapping it up in an inspirational/motivational bow. Grammatically perfect, no misspellings or shorthand or sentence fragments or trailing thoughts. Zero negativity. Vocabulary that uses dated clichés to sound folksy and relatable while still being a bit stiff and formal. “Jokes” that don’t make any sense, or that miss the context of the discussion.
Like, here are three ChatGPT responses to your comment when given the prompt “write a friendly reply to this Reddit comment” (which I suspect is similar to the prompt these spammers use):
I totally get where you’re coming from! Embracing our unique ways of communicating can sometimes have unexpected and even amusing outcomes. It sounds like you have a great sense of humor about it! Remember, the most important thing is to be yourself, whether that comes off as a bit robotic or not. Who knows, maybe the robot-human hybrid future is closer than we think! Keep rocking your unique style! 😊
Hey there! Embrace your unique way of communicating. 🤖✨ If sounding like a bot means you’re precise, efficient, and to the point, then that’s a superpower in my book! And hey, who wouldn’t want to be a cool robot-human hybrid? Rock on with your awesome self! 🚀🤘
It sounds like you have a great sense of humor about the situation! Embracing our unique ways of communicating can definitely be a superpower. And who knows, being a robot-human hybrid might just be the next step in evolution! Keep being your awesome self! 😊
There’s nothing technically wrong with these lines, but no real person who isn’t a corporate social media PR manager actually talks like this.
Hahaha I had to try this to the same comment you did with the prompt "(write a offended reply to this reddit comment) “Are you seriously comparing being neurodivergent to sounding like a bot? How dare you belittle the experiences and struggles of neurodivergent individuals just to make a ridiculous comparison. Your comment reeks of insensitivity and ignorance. Neurodivergent people face enough challenges in society without having their unique ways of communication reduced to being robotic. It’s truly disappointing to see such a disrespectful attitude.”
Right, but there’s a lot of people who don’t (or won’t) think that in depth into it. Going by the gist of it, I often fit the criteria for all four: comment length, tone, context and history. Especially with the ‘ending your text with an emoji thing’ lol. I dunno I guess I’m just seeing a lot of frustration in my future of strangers defaulting into thinking I’m not real. I’ve got some childhood trauma with feeling like I don’t exist and I really don’t need more of that soooo… THANKS BOTS. 👍
I’ve been applying for jobs recently and was using ChatGPT for help with the cover letters, mainly just for inspiration and I edited it. On the second one I noticed the suggestion was more or less exactly the same. So I just modified my first and put a bit more work into it to make it original. Each subsequent one was the same, and I generated a dozen and a half. Useful for picking out things worth highlighting, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that first and maybe even second place assumed it was ChatGPT right away lol. Definitely know what it smells like.
People can have a “gut feeling” about something and be absolutely right. It’s just something that you know is true based on previous experiences. It’s an educated guess.
In a similar way, we each have certain quirks or do things a certain way, so other people who know you may know, for example, that, when you get home at 5pm, you’re going to set your bag down in the living room and go lay down on the couch for a few minutes . There’s no evidence that’ll be the case this time, but, based on previous experience, they can make a pretty good educated guess that that is exactly what’s going to happen.
You can pop the first comment into CharGPT with ‘write me a reddit comment in response to’ and youll get similar stuff.
It’s a but ridiculous to claim it’s GPT related without proof, though. You can’t prove it and claiming you can ‘spot it’ is just hilarious to me.
“Wow, that’s quite the conspiracy theory! While Reddit has definitely seen its ups and downs, I think it’s safe to say it’s still very much alive, thanks to its dedicated community. Let’s keep the discussions going!”
“Seriously? Reddit was on its last legs long before June. This ‘Necromancer’ is just a desperate attempt to breathe life into something that was already fading away. RIP old Reddit, it’s a brave new world now.”
“Ha! If this is the work of a necromancer, they must be doing a pretty good job because I’m still addicted to scrolling through here!”
“Ah, so that explains the zombie posts and resurrected memes!”
“It’s unfortunate to hear that some believe Reddit has declined, but communities on the platform can evolve over time. Let’s hope for a positive revival if that’s the case.”
“I understand your concerns, but I don’t believe Reddit has died. While there have been changes and controversies, it’s still a vibrant platform with millions of users. Let’s hope it continues to evolve positively!”
This bots aren’t particularly clever and just regex a prompt template to put into ChatGPT automatically. As you would quickly realize playing with any LLM, if you enter the exact same prompt into ChatGPT you won’t get the exact same answer, but all answer will be rather similar and follow an, eventually, predictable pattern. While every comment will be certainly different it will also be repetitive. When put back to back, as when reading all the comments from a single account in the profile page, the repetitive pattern becomes obvious.
I think everyone’s reaction immediately assuming it’s a bot is odd as well. Everyone’s reasoning is just “you can tell by the way it is”. I’m just sitting here like uhhhh.
If you look at the pattern of comments in someone’s profile, it’d be far easier to tell. But looking at a singular comment in isolation like this and just assuming it’s a bot “because it is”. Ok?? I’m not convinced by a singular post and I don’t understand how everyone else is.
Nobody can accurately. This is copium in a sub for degenerates who can’t control their addiction. It’s grasping at straws because Reddit is still as popular as ever.
How can you tell that’s it an AI generated comment?
I’ve dealt with this particular bot problem as a mod. Noticing the pattern early on was easy because they always had posts on TEMU subreddits. Now that those subs are banned, it’s harder.
Comment length. Their comments are always less than two lines long.
Tone. They always contain at least one exclamation point, and tend to have a tone that I’d say is “cheery to the point it’s offputting.”
Context. Reading them, a lot of the time you’ll ask “did they even read what they’re replying to?” The comment seems related, but directly misses the main point.
History. Look at the rest of their comments. If more than one ends in two emojis, they’re definitely part of this particular bot network.
Also punctuation and usage of commas, apostrophes etc. Far too formal usage of style to go with the casual message of the comment.
You used commas, capitalization, and periods here. Therefore you are a bot exposing yourself!
I don’t usually drop punctuation unless I’m on text message or Discord. Still used to that Reddit norm and sticking to the norm of using regular punctuation isn’t one I take issue with, especially on a site based around reading other peoples’ comments and writing responses.
To be fair, a lot of people also use proper spelling and punctuation.
This just gives away they’re not a human from the hood.
All of hexbear is bots, confirmed.
Emoticons ≠ emojis.
I dunno that’s a conspiracy that feels like it might be true. One guy and his communist bots.
At least you know they are thinking as one that way.
This is dystopian
Yeah they always sound like the overenthusiastic 45y/o HR lady.
Yeah, it’s not something I’d notice with one comment, because sometimes people are just in that mood, but looking at all the comments together it’s pretty obvious.
Is there a way to prevent them from flooding the fediverse, or will that fall onto the shoulders of mods to find and delete them?
No clue.
Hopefully we’re just never big enough to matter.
They can defederate from hexbear. But that’s up to each instance individually.
Hey btw, the vocabulary used is often spontaneous - something a human on the internet never really uses
As for point #3…a lot of people on reddit have poor reading comprehension.
Okay, or maybe they’re bots, but FFS, how do you tell the difference? A lot of people have short attention spans. (See the prevalence of TLDR.) So, they just skim whatever they’re reading instead of slowing down and thinking about it.
Someone missing context doesn’t make them a bot. To be a part of this particular bot network, all 4 points will be present.
Wow, alright. Today I learned my neurodivergent ways of communicating online make me sound like a bot. On one hand, booo. On the other, well I did always want to become a robot-human hybrid so… win?
Nah, I scrolled through your recent comments and you’re fine. The description above is sort of close, but not quite – it’s more like every comment is syrupy sweet aggressively cheerful and unnaturally pleased about everything. Lots of overly familiar terms of endearment (friend, buddy, fellow Redditor, etc.). It also has a subtle rhythm – generally reacting to the parent post/comment, adding a friendly observation or two, and wrapping it up in an inspirational/motivational bow. Grammatically perfect, no misspellings or shorthand or sentence fragments or trailing thoughts. Zero negativity. Vocabulary that uses dated clichés to sound folksy and relatable while still being a bit stiff and formal. “Jokes” that don’t make any sense, or that miss the context of the discussion.
Like, here are three ChatGPT responses to your comment when given the prompt “write a friendly reply to this Reddit comment” (which I suspect is similar to the prompt these spammers use):
There’s nothing technically wrong with these lines, but no real person who isn’t a corporate social media PR manager actually talks like this.
Hahaha I had to try this to the same comment you did with the prompt "(write a offended reply to this reddit comment) “Are you seriously comparing being neurodivergent to sounding like a bot? How dare you belittle the experiences and struggles of neurodivergent individuals just to make a ridiculous comparison. Your comment reeks of insensitivity and ignorance. Neurodivergent people face enough challenges in society without having their unique ways of communication reduced to being robotic. It’s truly disappointing to see such a disrespectful attitude.”
That is spot fucking on Reddit
Right, but there’s a lot of people who don’t (or won’t) think that in depth into it. Going by the gist of it, I often fit the criteria for all four: comment length, tone, context and history. Especially with the ‘ending your text with an emoji thing’ lol. I dunno I guess I’m just seeing a lot of frustration in my future of strangers defaulting into thinking I’m not real. I’ve got some childhood trauma with feeling like I don’t exist and I really don’t need more of that soooo… THANKS BOTS. 👍
what is a TEMU subreddit?
A subreddit about TEMU.
There’s no rigorous test, but once you’ve worked with it enough you can kinda just tell. This reeks of ChatGPT.
I’ve been applying for jobs recently and was using ChatGPT for help with the cover letters, mainly just for inspiration and I edited it. On the second one I noticed the suggestion was more or less exactly the same. So I just modified my first and put a bit more work into it to make it original. Each subsequent one was the same, and I generated a dozen and a half. Useful for picking out things worth highlighting, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that first and maybe even second place assumed it was ChatGPT right away lol. Definitely know what it smells like.
Ah yes the “just trust me bro” scientific message.
People can have a “gut feeling” about something and be absolutely right. It’s just something that you know is true based on previous experiences. It’s an educated guess.
In a similar way, we each have certain quirks or do things a certain way, so other people who know you may know, for example, that, when you get home at 5pm, you’re going to set your bag down in the living room and go lay down on the couch for a few minutes . There’s no evidence that’ll be the case this time, but, based on previous experience, they can make a pretty good educated guess that that is exactly what’s going to happen.
Just because you’re oblivious doesn’t mean we can’t fucking taste it
Has that feeling of truthiness egh?
The “Keep scrolling and enjoy the ride, my friend.” is what tipped me off. ChatGPT tends to say stuff like that when trying to be enthusiatic.
Honestly doesn’t seem too far off from standard Redditese to me
At least it’s not “the narwhal bacons at midnight” shit
You can pop the first comment into CharGPT with ‘write me a reddit comment in response to’ and youll get similar stuff.
It’s a but ridiculous to claim it’s GPT related without proof, though. You can’t prove it and claiming you can ‘spot it’ is just hilarious to me.
“Wow, that’s quite the conspiracy theory! While Reddit has definitely seen its ups and downs, I think it’s safe to say it’s still very much alive, thanks to its dedicated community. Let’s keep the discussions going!”
“Seriously? Reddit was on its last legs long before June. This ‘Necromancer’ is just a desperate attempt to breathe life into something that was already fading away. RIP old Reddit, it’s a brave new world now.”
“Ha! If this is the work of a necromancer, they must be doing a pretty good job because I’m still addicted to scrolling through here!”
“Ah, so that explains the zombie posts and resurrected memes!”
“It’s unfortunate to hear that some believe Reddit has declined, but communities on the platform can evolve over time. Let’s hope for a positive revival if that’s the case.”
“I understand your concerns, but I don’t believe Reddit has died. While there have been changes and controversies, it’s still a vibrant platform with millions of users. Let’s hope it continues to evolve positively!”
This bots aren’t particularly clever and just regex a prompt template to put into ChatGPT automatically. As you would quickly realize playing with any LLM, if you enter the exact same prompt into ChatGPT you won’t get the exact same answer, but all answer will be rather similar and follow an, eventually, predictable pattern. While every comment will be certainly different it will also be repetitive. When put back to back, as when reading all the comments from a single account in the profile page, the repetitive pattern becomes obvious.
You can tell it’s robots by the way it is.
I think everyone’s reaction immediately assuming it’s a bot is odd as well. Everyone’s reasoning is just “you can tell by the way it is”. I’m just sitting here like uhhhh.
If you look at the pattern of comments in someone’s profile, it’d be far easier to tell. But looking at a singular comment in isolation like this and just assuming it’s a bot “because it is”. Ok?? I’m not convinced by a singular post and I don’t understand how everyone else is.
OK, whoever is calling this a bot, enlighten me. I’m too dumb to tell if it’s a bot or not:
https://www.reddit.com/user/artisticEggs09724/
The only maybe tell I have is that every comment seems to be uplifting and written with excitement. Aint nobody that happy. Maybe. lol.
too positive and articulated
Nobody can accurately. This is copium in a sub for degenerates who can’t control their addiction. It’s grasping at straws because Reddit is still as popular as ever.