Good spot, thanks for pointing it out. I normally don't like the LLM accusation posts, but two posts from a brand new user in the same minute is a pretty huge red flag for bad behavior.
Their comment got flagged, but looks like they made a new one today and is still active.
That account ('Soerensen') was created in 2024 and dormant until it made a bunch of detailed comments in the past 24-48 hrs. Some of them are multiple paragraph comments posted within 1 minute of each other.
One thing I've noticed is that they seem to be getting posted from old/inactive/never used accounts. Are they buying them? Creating a bunch and waiting months/years before posting?
Either way, both look like they're fooling people here. And getting better at staying under the radar until they slip up in little ways like this.
Some, maybe, but that's just another nice layer of plausible deniability.
The truth is that the internet is both(what's the word for 'both' when you have three(four?) things?) dead, an active cyber- and information- warzone and a dark forest.
I suppose it was fun while it lasted. At least we still have mostly real people in our local offline communities.
Funny, you're definitely right -- I've done it probably just 2 or 3 times over a decade, when I felt like I had two meaningful but completely unrelated things to say. And it always felt super weird, almost as if I was being dishonest or something. Could never quite put my finger on why. Or maybe I was worried it would look like I was trying to hog the conversation?
I don’t know about the particular claim about the new account — if true, based on what people have said, this would be consistent with an LLM bot with high probability … (but not completely out of the question for a person) … I’ll leave that analysis up to the moderators who have a better statistical understanding of server logs, etc.
That said, as a general point, it’s reasonable to make scoped comments in the corresponding parts of the conversation tree. (Is that what happened here?)
About me: I try to pay attention to social conventions, but I rarely consider technology offered to me as some sort of intrinsically correct norm; I tend to view it as some minimally acceptable technological solution that is easy enough to build and attracts a lowest common denominator of traction. But most forums I see tend to pay little attention to broader human patterns around communication; generally speaking, it seems to me that social technology tends to expect people to conform to it rather than the other way around. I think it’s fair to say that the history of online communication has demonstrated a tendency of people to find workarounds to the limitations offered them. (Using punctuation for facial expressions comes to mind.)
One might claim such workarounds are a feature rather than a bug. Maybe sometimes? But I think you’d have to dig into the history more and go case by case. I tend to think of features as conscious choices not lucky accidents.
Thanks and please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46888857.
People probably didn't see the other post, but both posts are several paragraphs and posted the same minute. No human would do that.
Its also a new account that only posted these two posts.
Good spot, thanks for pointing it out. I normally don't like the LLM accusation posts, but two posts from a brand new user in the same minute is a pretty huge red flag for bad behavior.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46886472
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46886470
This is another bot I pointed out yesterday:
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Soerensen
Their comment got flagged, but looks like they made a new one today and is still active.
That account ('Soerensen') was created in 2024 and dormant until it made a bunch of detailed comments in the past 24-48 hrs. Some of them are multiple paragraph comments posted within 1 minute of each other.
One thing I've noticed is that they seem to be getting posted from old/inactive/never used accounts. Are they buying them? Creating a bunch and waiting months/years before posting?
Either way, both look like they're fooling people here. And getting better at staying under the radar until they slip up in little ways like this.
I wonder if it's actual users with dormant accounts who just setup their Moltbot?
Some, maybe, but that's just another nice layer of plausible deniability.
The truth is that the internet is both(what's the word for 'both' when you have three(four?) things?) dead, an active cyber- and information- warzone and a dark forest.
I suppose it was fun while it lasted. At least we still have mostly real people in our local offline communities.
Gives this old cartoon new meaning, I suppose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet%2C_nobody_know...
Old account, fresh comments - to make it more clear. Freaky.
So what, if the content is good?
Also, some of us draft our comments offline, and then paste them in. Maybe he drafted two comments?
Posting sibling comments is unusual.
Funny, you're definitely right -- I've done it probably just 2 or 3 times over a decade, when I felt like I had two meaningful but completely unrelated things to say. And it always felt super weird, almost as if I was being dishonest or something. Could never quite put my finger on why. Or maybe I was worried it would look like I was trying to hog the conversation?
I don’t know about the particular claim about the new account — if true, based on what people have said, this would be consistent with an LLM bot with high probability … (but not completely out of the question for a person) … I’ll leave that analysis up to the moderators who have a better statistical understanding of server logs, etc.
That said, as a general point, it’s reasonable to make scoped comments in the corresponding parts of the conversation tree. (Is that what happened here?)
About me: I try to pay attention to social conventions, but I rarely consider technology offered to me as some sort of intrinsically correct norm; I tend to view it as some minimally acceptable technological solution that is easy enough to build and attracts a lowest common denominator of traction. But most forums I see tend to pay little attention to broader human patterns around communication; generally speaking, it seems to me that social technology tends to expect people to conform to it rather than the other way around. I think it’s fair to say that the history of online communication has demonstrated a tendency of people to find workarounds to the limitations offered them. (Using punctuation for facial expressions comes to mind.)
One might claim such workarounds are a feature rather than a bug. Maybe sometimes? But I think you’d have to dig into the history more and go case by case. I tend to think of features as conscious choices not lucky accidents.