Slashdot Mirror
Most Americans Can't Tell the Difference Between a Social Media Bot and A Human, Study Finds (theverge.com)
A new study from Pew Research Center found that most Americans can't tell social media bots from real humans, and most are convinced bots are bad. "Only 47 percent of Americans are somewhat confident they can identify social media bots from real humans," reports The Verge. "In contrast, most Americans surveyed in a study about fake news were confident they could identify false stories." From the report: The Pew study is an uncommon look at what the average person thinks about these automated accounts that plague social media platforms. After surveying over 4,500 adults in the U.S., Pew found that most people actually don't know much about bots. Two-thirds of Americans have at least heard of social media bots, but only 16 percent say they've heard a lot about them, while 34 percent say they've never heard of them at all. The knowledgeable tend to be younger, and men are more likely than women (by 22 percentage points) to say they've heard of bots. Since the survey results are self-reported, there's a chance people are overstating or understating their knowledge of bots. Of those who have heard of bots, 80 percent say the accounts are used for bad purposes.
Regardless of whether a person is a Republican or Democrat or young or old, most think that bots are bad. And the more that a person knows about social media bots, the less supportive they are of bots being used for various purposes, like activists drawing attention to topics or a political party using bots to promote candidates.
Regardless of whether a person is a Republican or Democrat or young or old, most think that bots are bad. And the more that a person knows about social media bots, the less supportive they are of bots being used for various purposes, like activists drawing attention to topics or a political party using bots to promote candidates.
...this assumes there IS a meaningful difference.
-Styopa
stoopid hoomans!
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
It was an opinion poll about whether people were confident they could identify social bots. No study was done to see if they really could or not.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
When it comes to the simplest statements, there just isn't enough content to tell whether it is a person or a bot. Many people pick up what bots say and amplify them and vice versa.
But, bots aren't just spreading simple messages. The better ones are spreading messages handcrafted for effect by people. The lobbyist, or whatever we want to call the person using the bot to manipulate, writes the initial messages. They aren't from a bot. Then bots are used to amplify the message as well as tie it in by linking both to it and to parties that the message will likely resonate with. The better bots may also search out similar messages and amplify them as well as use AI to paraphrase the message in new ways and spread it in different forms.
It is all under human control though and getting more and more difficult to recognize.
Maybe they're simply acknowledging that the NPC humans on social media provide no more intellectual content than a software bot. Kind of like the bogus clickbait headlines on Slashdot.
It formed random "sentences" based on markov chains 3 words deep constructed from a word appearance database collected over about 4 months of irc logs that I had personally collected. Each "sentence" it created was based on a single word that was randomly selected from the channel chatter since the last comment, and it made one comment every two minutes. It was nothing more sinister than that.
Much of what it said seemed nonsequitor, and I think it was widely assumed to be trolling, although I had not coded it specifically to do so.
There wasn't a single channel that took it to where it was not banned. In retrospect, it was an interesting social experiment, although I hadn't intended it to be such.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This goes back to at least Eliza program, which drew in a surprising number of folks, and was hardly AI.
So APK is a bot? Or it's a fake news spreader?
by a human and the picture linked is on topic and politically funny?
Can a bot be more on topic and useful than the human responding in all caps that it makes fun of their side of politics?
That the animated meme of a frail politician provided fun and joy to millions.
A human made the art.
The human who found the image, artwork, animation is still doing the creative work.
The bot just allows a person to use their time in a better way. To find more art and share powerful political memes. The bot doing the broadcasting.
The political party provided the candidate. The human with skills created the political art that reflects the comedy of such a selection.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Most Americans can't tell the difference between people on social media and bots
love is just extroverted narcissism
Again AC fans do have the freedom of speech to review a movie in any way they want.
They have the freedom to point out political content.
A poor quality script.
A script that fails to connect with past books and movies in any way.
Comical acting and events that don't flow with the rest of the years of content.
Why should bad quality political movies that fans do not like get good reviews?
Thats what freedom of the press is all about. Not having big gov demand movie reviews stay positive for one side of domestic politics.
With social media and online reviews people don't have to trust a few national newspaper and TV review shows like they did in past decades.
Lots of fans can publish their own thoughts online about a movie they saw and present their own views on the script, political content and acting.
Want to make a new political movie using a brand a lot of people enjoy, the reviewers will notice and have the freedom to comment on that.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It's obvious.
The bots reply ;-)
+----------------- | What is the question!
Does the Turing Test count if people change?
AC nations that have the freedom to publish do not want to their governments to remove movie reviews.
People do have the right to talk about bad quality politically motivated movies in any way they want.
Should only positive pre approved pro studio, studio approved reviews be allowed on social media AC?
Should anyone who takes the time to write a well thought out negative review about the domestic political content of a movie get their account removed?
Would linking to a negative review get a social media account removed AC?
Social media would then only have happy gov and studio approved review and reviewers accounts?
People would tend to notice that every bad movie they saw had a really good studio approved review.
The fix for all this is to make really great movies people enjoy and allow reviews to tell people a movie is worth going to see.
The fans who are very happy about new content then become a movies very enthusiastic supporters. Free marketing, how good is that AC.
Removing accounts on social media for movie reviews will not help a bad political movie recover from a low quality script.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Stay off of social media and the problem mentioned in the headline is irrelevant.
Maybe the bots will get into and / or instigate arguments between themselves.
. . . if a bot makes a statement, and no one is there to read it, would anyone care ?
AC Re "You do not have the "right" to expect to be granted unfettered speech "anywhere and everywhere" on the internet. That's unrealistic and stupid to suggest on that basis."
Who has the ability to stop that freedom of speech and then ban user created content?
An actor who does not like their ability to act getting comment on?
The studio who only wants the most positive reviews to remain online?
One government offical invoking a new fairness doctrine?
A politically motivated person with a brands approval to remove content?
A group of politically motivated people who once worked for a gov/mil and who now want to shape the online reviews of movies?
A gov approved group of artists who will approve or ban a users content due to political content?
Let people create and publish their own thoughts on a movie. Let internet users find the reviews they think are useful. No political censorship is needed.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
People need to be certified before using a computer, because this has gotten more dangerous than driving cars. And luckily there is no digital equivalent of the 2nd amendment, so better to nip this one in the bud right now.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
So what you're saying is that an entire group of people is bad because one person said something you think you disagree with but don't quite understand because you're not too sure about academic lingo.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
To me, everyone else is an npc.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Who has the ability? How about the person or people in charge of the private website on which said review is posted/shared?
Don't want your noise (and yes, a lot of so-called "free speech", whether it's a review, or something else, is nothing but valueless noise) taken down or censored? Post it on your own website.
You do not have the right to demand someone else aid you in circulating your commentary.
Off course the ultimate proof is that they elected one as president.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I predicted years ago that humans would fail the Turing test before AI passes it. Most on-line posting is of such a low quality I'd hope it's mostly bots. Otherwise I fear for humanities future.
Most Americans can't tell an obviously bogus bullshit story from reality either, that's why fake news are such a problem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What do you expect from a society that celebrates ignorant fools? If you have more people listen to the random ramblings of some idiot with no detectable education (aka "celebrity") than people who do know what they're talking about because they spent time learning and studying the subject, you shouldn't expect people to make educated decisions.
And you also shouldn't expect people to pursue knowledge and reason when you have a culture that celebrates ignorance and vanity. Even the term "celebrity" isn't what it used to be, in the old days, we had celebrities that could do something exceptionally well. Even if it was "only" dancing, singing, playing some kind of sport. Today's celebrities ... it seems the term now means "being too stupid and lazy for anything, but still being rich for some odd reason".
And that's the main problem here. These "celebrities" show off that you can be dumb as a doorknob and still be rich. And since being rich is also the only thing that counts in our society, what these people teach us is that it's ok to have the IQ of a potatoe. You can still be "important".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hey, it's not that bad. 94% of Americans can at least find the US ... on a map of North America, that is...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Weird headline ... as though most Elbonians, on the other hand, would spot the bot in a New York minute, lol
Anyway, social media is such an artificial environment that the whole thing is silly. It's like saying that nobody can spot Robbie the Robot - as long as we're all required to wear flex hose on our arms and giant fishbowls on our heads.
Sometimes it just writes itself.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm a bot * a bot IS REAL too, insensitive APK followers!
not surprising, back in the 90's I ran a bbs and had a small program called lisa installed. it acted like a real person. I would sit there and watch conversations people would have with it. One time a preacher was on my board and was talking to lisa, then he started witnessing to it. I had to break the connection since I knew lisa was not real and was embarrassed for the preacher.
if people were fooled back then, it would not be hard to imagine them being fooled today.
Ok. Kartoffel. Besser jetzt?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.