this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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Fedigrow
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Fake engagement to drive more users here seeking engagement, thinking they are interacting with real people. Not a fan of the deception, but I read somewhere on the Fediverse (do not remember the source, or if this is true!) that Reddit started this way, and eventually got a huge amount of real people. I do not want to talking to an LLM on here, but I wonder if I'd be against LLMs pretending to be people in the comments if I knew the tradeoff would be the Fediverse growing, as itself and not some thing taken over by a corporation, with more actual humans to talk to about my interests with. The thing is, I don't know if that outcome would occur for sure.
Although your comment made me think: bots dropping hot takes do not get upset when people get toxic in the comments :P
If this place gets overrun by bots it doesn't matter if the Fediverse becomes successful - we will already have lost.
I'm here because I want to avoid shit like that. And growth shouldn't be a goal in its own right, but a consequence of doing other things right.
The reason I want it to grow is because I want to talk to other people about my interests without having to use Reddit. Not just me being the only poster about it.
I did say that I wondered if I'd accept bots if I was guaranteed the above outcome, with other humans, not with it being overrun with bots. I also don't want to talk to LLMs. The reality is we do not know for sure if botting the place up will help it grow, and botting it makes it unpleasant for users now, so I am against it.
Yeah, I understand your argument, and it's fair in its way. For me personally though, this is the opposite of what I would want from the internet, so I would of course absolutely hate it.
I guess everything is fair as long as it's honest - as long as they're marked as bots, instances can do whatever they want. I'd end up blocking bots though.
If I find out the people I talk to here are just LLM models I'll leave in a heartbeat and never look back.