What is the purpose of AI generated answers?

andy_ · March 23, 2024, 03:35

Slightly off topic but as part of my attempt to understand the web can someone please explain what spammers gain from posting AI generated answers to questions?

LuckyTran · March 23, 2024, 07:57

Actually the post you are concerned about which has since been deleted was not even AI generated, just an archaic spam bot. It's confusing to you because you're only seeing the posts by bots that have successfully avoided the bot filter. And that is it. One of the things that the filter cannot handle well is a presumably legitimate post, even if the user is a bot.

andy_ · March 23, 2024, 09:44

Thanks for the response and my question was prompted by several posts on several forums and, as you say, the recently deleted post didn't look like a chatgpt or equivalent answer. I cannot see what a spammer gains from such posts. Profile building is perhaps a possibility with the intention of introducing spam at a later date. Is this enough or is there something more useful to a spammer?

Perhaps the moderators or forum software need to use AI to find and tag and/or delete AI generated posts? And an arms race develops... Perhaps it already has?

LuckyTran · March 23, 2024, 14:51

You're kinda still missing the point. There wasn't just 1 bot but a multitude of them all attempting to circumvent the protection all at the same time. And what you see is the one that survived.

What you are seeing is the digital equivalent of natural selection and this is why Darwin's concept was so controversial. It doesn't need to be smart or have any purpose, if it survives. And if it survives, that becomes a way to evolve.

Actually the same post I'm referring to had an innocuous link. So it wasn't as innocent as it seems...

There are a multitude of bot purposes. One specific case example I saw herewas when Diablo 2 Resurrected launched in 2021. I was actually seeing spam bots in D2:R... that was duplicating posts from CFD-online in the game together with a link to a Russian site trying to sell.. Ber and Jah runes. Bots were infiltrating games and trying to generate site traffic for potential sales and ad revenue. The stupid s**t people were saying here was being spread to a mass mainstream audience and probably made the site upwards of $100k. I'll tell ya, it was an outerworldly experience reading about how the k-omega sst model needs to be integrated all the way to the wall in a video game.

andy_ · March 23, 2024, 16:02

If I understand correctly, which I may not, you are suggesting the content doesn't matter and it was a test of the sites defences. I guess a chatgpt generated post would draw less attention than a conventional spam post. Presumably the plan is to come back later and use the open account to make money by, for example, posting spam links?

LuckyTran · March 23, 2024, 16:06

No I'm saying 15 thieves tried to break into your home and 14 were arrested by the police. 1 was not arrested because they stood outside. You're asking what is the purpose of the 1 thief not trying to steal anything. They didn't successfully steal anything and they also succeeded to not get caught. Interestingly, viruses don't have any purpose but they're very good at self preservation, self replication, etc. Survival doesn't need a purpose.

jola · March 23, 2024, 17:06

The number of innocent AI-generated responses have reduced. I have not seen a lot of them in the last weeks, have you? Just after chatgpt was launched we got a lot of AI-generated posts. I deleted the ones I saw and never got any response from the authors, so there were clearly no humans behind. Many of the posts looked very innocent and tried to answer the question. I think it was just one or a few persons trying out AI on our forum.

We get a lot of spam posts, and our spam filters stop about 90% of these posts. The ones that sneak by are often without any links. The user then often waits and comes back later to edit their posts and add a link. Frequently the links are hidden with a small font or text in the same color as the background. The only reason I can see for people to do this is to fool google into ranking the linked spam-pages higher. We have a very high ranking on Google and links from CFD Online are valuable.

andy_ · March 24, 2024, 04:18

Thanks for the input. I hadn't thought of google rankings or come across hidden links. Although chatgpt and friends are clearly growing low content website and making it harder to find the good/original stuff perhaps it isn't going to degrade forums like this significantly. It might even help overall if users get into the habit of using it before posting.

March 23, 2024, 03:35	What is the purpose of AI generated answers?	#1
andy_ Senior Member andy Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 270 Rep Power: 17	Slightly off topic but as part of my attempt to understand the web can someone please explain what spammers gain from posting AI generated answers to questions?

March 23, 2024, 16:06		#6
LuckyTran Senior Member Lucky Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Orlando, FL USA Posts: 5,675 Rep Power: 66	No I'm saying 15 thieves tried to break into your home and 14 were arrested by the police. 1 was not arrested because they stood outside. You're asking what is the purpose of the 1 thief not trying to steal anything. They didn't successfully steal anything and they also succeeded to not get caught. Interestingly, viruses don't have any purpose but they're very good at self preservation, self replication, etc. Survival doesn't need a purpose. andy_ likes this.

March 23, 2024, 17:06		#7
jola Administrator Jonas Larsson Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Gothenburg, Sweden Posts: 824 Rep Power: 10	The number of innocent AI-generated responses have reduced. I have not seen a lot of them in the last weeks, have you? Just after chatgpt was launched we got a lot of AI-generated posts. I deleted the ones I saw and never got any response from the authors, so there were clearly no humans behind. Many of the posts looked very innocent and tried to answer the question. I think it was just one or a few persons trying out AI on our forum. We get a lot of spam posts, and our spam filters stop about 90% of these posts. The ones that sneak by are often without any links. The user then often waits and comes back later to edit their posts and add a link. Frequently the links are hidden with a small font or text in the same color as the background. The only reason I can see for people to do this is to fool google into ranking the linked spam-pages higher. We have a very high ranking on Google and links from CFD Online are valuable. sbaffini and andy_ like this.

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March 23, 2024, 07:57		#2
LuckyTran Senior Member Lucky Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Orlando, FL USA Posts: 5,675 Rep Power: 66	Actually the post you are concerned about which has since been deleted was not even AI generated, just an archaic spam bot. It's confusing to you because you're only seeing the posts by bots that have successfully avoided the bot filter. And that is it. One of the things that the filter cannot handle well is a presumably legitimate post, even if the user is a bot.

March 23, 2024, 09:44		#3
andy_ Senior Member andy Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 270 Rep Power: 17	Thanks for the response and my question was prompted by several posts on several forums and, as you say, the recently deleted post didn't look like a chatgpt or equivalent answer. I cannot see what a spammer gains from such posts. Profile building is perhaps a possibility with the intention of introducing spam at a later date. Is this enough or is there something more useful to a spammer? Perhaps the moderators or forum software need to use AI to find and tag and/or delete AI generated posts? And an arms race develops... Perhaps it already has?

March 23, 2024, 14:51		#4
LuckyTran Senior Member Lucky Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Orlando, FL USA Posts: 5,675 Rep Power: 66	You're kinda still missing the point. There wasn't just 1 bot but a multitude of them all attempting to circumvent the protection all at the same time. And what you see is the one that survived. What you are seeing is the digital equivalent of natural selection and this is why Darwin's concept was so controversial. It doesn't need to be smart or have any purpose, if it survives. And if it survives, that becomes a way to evolve. Actually the same post I'm referring to had an innocuous link. So it wasn't as innocent as it seems... There are a multitude of bot purposes. One specific case example I saw herewas when Diablo 2 Resurrected launched in 2021. I was actually seeing spam bots in D2:R... that was duplicating posts from CFD-online in the game together with a link to a Russian site trying to sell.. Ber and Jah runes. Bots were infiltrating games and trying to generate site traffic for potential sales and ad revenue. The stupid s**t people were saying here was being spread to a mass mainstream audience and probably made the site upwards of $100k. I'll tell ya, it was an outerworldly experience reading about how the k-omega sst model needs to be integrated all the way to the wall in a video game.

March 23, 2024, 16:02		#5
andy_ Senior Member andy Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 270 Rep Power: 17	If I understand correctly, which I may not, you are suggesting the content doesn't matter and it was a test of the sites defences. I guess a chatgpt generated post would draw less attention than a conventional spam post. Presumably the plan is to come back later and use the open account to make money by, for example, posting spam links?

March 24, 2024, 04:18		#8
andy_ Senior Member andy Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 270 Rep Power: 17	Thanks for the input. I hadn't thought of google rankings or come across hidden links. Although chatgpt and friends are clearly growing low content website and making it harder to find the good/original stuff perhaps it isn't going to degrade forums like this significantly. It might even help overall if users get into the habit of using it before posting.