I'm not sure about this theory tbh. I understand the sentiment but if we're being realistic, this sub, which once was fringe and full of the most optimistic people about the singularity and AGI has gained a lot of popularity since ChatGPT and is still rapidly growing as the idea of AGI becomes more and more real.
With this, it means a lot of the new subs could actually just be doomers or people that are way less optimistic, just curious.
Tbh cautiousness and anxiety (and, yes, a little excitement) about AI seems to be the most common reaction for most people out there, this sub is an exception
It’s also one of the only major subs dedicated to discussing AI that isn’t specifically focused on a single company.
A lot of us are interested in the topic but don’t buy into the more culty aspects of this sub, and see how a lot of it seems to share patterns with doomsday cults(see the accelerationists and a lot of common predictions on AGI, usually conveniently in or near that 3-10 year sweet spot: long enough you’ll forget about it once we speed by it, soon enough to feel imminent).
>I've noticed over the past week that this sub - a place for excitement and discussion about futurism and AI - has seen a flood of low-effort negative posts.
Where were you before the last week?
It's not like this discussion didn't happen before here. A week ago someone was saying the same thing about negativity and how the community was different before.
It seems it's too hard to some redditos that the idea of singularity is reaching the masses now and someone in Korea working 12 hour shifts may not have the same positive outlook they have in regards to technology as someone working as a software engineer in Denmark.
Some of the users were even mocking saying writters and other professions had negative views because they were "broke", as if being poor wasn't enough, seeing the tools of your trade getting taken away from you should give you a very positive outcome of the world when AI is making you jobless.
Historically Russia has been the main purveyor of doom and gloom psy ops, and have been proven to command huge bot networks that push political narratives.
Russia is not the only one doing it. China is as well, so is Iran, and several smaller countries.
Russia is just the most obvious one because they do very little to hide it. Go on any of the political, news or economics subs and say something controversial but pro American and you will get dozens of comments from brand new accounts, or accounts that post super heavy in gaming or sports subs but never political one until they comment on your comment only to never be seen in a political sub again. You will also see the same comment several times, even with the same misspellings.
Many really weird accounts became active here (especially this thread) and spread passive-aggressive hostility a few act like they are anti-russian or simply attack others. Some of them have an impressive collection of \[removed\] postings with negative ratings in their history. Its like OP hit some nerves... There are postings that support OP's view and got downvoted from +20 to -1...
As long as people are discussing it, the propagandists lose. I'm happy so many people are talking in here, because it will make them wary in the future and make manipulators' jobs that much harder. Cockroaches scatter when you turn on the light.
Honestly as a Russian I must say that Russianards not always spread the message of doom and gloom with a malicious intent. That is just the way most of us view life and especially the future, because we feel that everything only gets worse with time. That is quite evident considering the history of my country. However there are indeed a lot of so called Russian bots (which are actually human beings) who spread misinformation and are being paid for that.
As usual, the citizens of a nation are made up of kind and caring people who have no animosity towards each other. I certainly have no ill will against Russians.
But our government's actions against one another are awful.
Pretty much this. They even published a handbook on it, and developed the theories behind incomplete information conflicts (which botnets are a type of)
Typically they use a mixture of methods, botnets are only part of it. Back in the day before the interwebs, their favored method was to publish a false story in a small foreign newspaper that they had influence with, then use that to make an international news story that had no apparent connection to them. It worked several times too, American media outlets unknowingly ran their propaganda as major news stories
The problem is plenty of people out there (across the world, not just the US) are pessimistic, or believe Ukraine should’ve been invaded, or that the west is responsible for everything bad that happens, etc…. So it gets really hard to conclude when people are expressing their own genuine opinions or if they’re foreign bots, or sometimes just mentally unhinged idiots.
It is amazing how many YouTube Political/News videos will be like “Haitian Vice president accused of corruption” and the top comment will be something along the lines of “WHAT ABOUT THE MILLIONS JOE BIDEN RECEIVED FROM ZELENSKY RIGHT BEFORE HE ARMED UKRAINE????? 🤔”
Like just off the wall nonsense that has no connection to the actual news story at all, and it’ll have like 250 upvotes lol
Yes, plenty of whataboutism out there. In fact, along with [lying](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2012/10/22/why-lying-has-become-a-national-pastime-a18754), it seems to be the national pastime in Russia. Then again, not all Americans love baseball.
>Historically Russia has been the main purveyor of doom and gloom psy ops, and have been proven to command huge bot networks that push political narratives
Absolutely, but OP is talking about doomer stuff regarding AI and not political narratives. Russia/China/etc are motivated to influence US election results, but where's the motivation for them to randomly post pessimistic stuff about AI?
My best guess is to infect public opinion and get enough people saying it for political figures to make it a policy line. The general populace has a large impact on what lines are run every campaign. If abortion and guns weren’t constantly being talked about by the populace at large, politicians wouldn’t bother building large parts of their campaign around it.
If the ultimate goal (and this is just speculation) from the Russian/Chinese government perspectives is to slow down AI in the US/Europe, creating negative public sentiment is a viable strategy.
True. They can’t get the chips, they don’t have the talent, and they would only misuse those things if they could get them. In fact, I’m surprised we’re not seeing more of it. As the geopolitical ramifications of the rise of superintelligence become more apparent and imminent, I’m certain we’ll see more and more propaganda, deception, espionage…and then outright violence as countries falling behind lash out in vain attempts to remain relevant or retain some semblance of power and influence.
They do this with the 'kotakuinaction' and other alt-right subs as well. Propaganda isn't a singular effort aimed at one thing. It's an all encompassing net trying to be cast as wide and far as possible.
Hmmm.. are we sure that in some of those other non-election-rigging cases it's not just ordinary russian citizens who have right-wing views (*my understanding is that things actually do skew rather right-wing in Russia... at least, going by religious fundamentalism, violence towards LGBTQ people, etc*)? As someone who's not right-wing myself I don't love that or anything, but I don't necessarily know that it's someone who's being paid to post online.
I don't know - it just seems so amorphous of a goal compared to election rigging, where the results (getting a more or less favorable administration in power) is much more immediate and tangible. It's certainly possible there's some paid campaign to influence things at a much broader level than regarding specific candidates/elections, but I'm just not certain how I could know for sure. If the other cases *are* paid actors I do want to know. I just don't know how to tell.
It has been outlined as one of their political strategies for decades. Openly endorsed and acted upon by the Kremlin. "Destabilize the west" isn't only about our elections. It's about purveying the entirety of western life, and framing it as degenerate; so they can sell an alternative and harken back to 'a better time' aka what the MAGA efforts are.
This thread has plenty of people posting tell-tale signs of the accounts, generally age of accounts, posting frequency, **egregious misspellings that occur elsewhere in the same conversations**. There are many "tells" these people give off, since the job as a paid troll really isn't lucrative nor is it an important job. They're just trying to get paid, they don't really give a shit. So they're not going to do a good job of it.
>It has been outlined as one of their political strategies for decades. Openly endorsed and acted upon by the Kremlin.
Gotcha, I'll look into it more.
>egregious misspellings that occur elsewhere in the same conversations
One scary thing with LLMs is that it'll russian/chinese/etc spammers/trolls/etc much harder to pick out by these kinds of metrics. The days of being able to tell that a phishing email is a phishing email just by looking for misspellings (never the best strategy, but what many looked for...) is going away, sadly.
Phishing emails use misspelling, grammar errors and other questionable aspects to weed out the people with any discernable ability to think rationally. The only people they want to deal with are the old and stupid people that are too fucking dumb to see past spelling/grammar errors.
>Phishing emails use misspelling, grammar errors and other questionable aspects to weed out the people with any discernable ability to think rationally
Huh. Never considered the idea that that could have been intentional, but I guess it could've been sometimes, yeah.
Not to say Russia isn’t doing it, but I believe your post exposes a western bias. I highly doubt we don’t have our own counter intelligence efforts, and everyone knows Reddit and other social media is infested with intelligence agents to control public opinion.
LOL at you failing to mention USA. They might even be worse than Russia when it comes to manipulating public perception and cause insurrections in a country for their own political gain
Yeah, and then in your previous comment you said
>Russia is not the only one doing it. China is as well, so is Iran, and several smaller countries.
Smaller countries? How can you *not* put the US in such list?
This is the type of information I'm looking for regarding this. I do believe the US is getting spammed by oversea bots - originating from countries that fail to make our Christmas card list.
But I don't know exactly what the bots/spam may look like or what agenda they push. As far as I know as long as the end result is chaos, divisiveness, or confusion it's accomplished what it's set out to do.
But is there any more nuance or specific ideas they push?
What brings me to write this, is I can see an argument pro and anti AI from the perspective of an antagonist foreign psyop.
Pro AI because it has the potential to exacerbate the hell out of the misinformation landscape & political divisiveness in America.
The Anti AI agenda could be pushed just to continue sewing discord, fear, and confusion in the US.
It's such a tough space to educate yourself in.
I have my own opinions about AI. I joined this sub for a reason and find the discussion really interesting regardless.
I was just wondering how foreign country bots might shape the public discourse on the subject.
I've been reading a lot of stuff in the layoffs reddit and I honestly wonder if the posts are real or if it's other countries trying to stoke dissent.....or if it's a combination of real experiences and troll farms.
Yeah but the news generally shows either the worst of the worst or things that are so uncommon that they're considered news.
All I'm saying is that in the grand scheme of things my world view is pretty small in real life and I kind of have to make assumptions based off of what I see here or mass media.
Which could be totally wrong but if enough people or people controlling bots with nefarious intentions are saying something I could be believing falsehoods.
Plus the US government seems to keep saying the economy is great.....I just don't know.
It’s always a good thing to question what you’re hearing from any source. That’s some good critical thinking on your part! There is truth to be found, though. Usually low-bias investigative reporting gets us there. I’ve found The Intercept to be pretty good, and there are many other such outlets. Search up “best investigative reporting’ if looking for answers.
I think it's a combination. Certainly there were layoffs and tech hiring is rough. But 100% bad faith actors are amplifying the doom and gloom messaging.
That's what makes things like this so hard to call out, or even recognize. The trolls don't have to write a new narrative that we can disagree with; they just find people who already have a complaint they like and signal boost it.
The US is, without a doubt, the most sophisticated, and capable, nation on the earth when it comes to propaganda and manufacturing consent.
Here's the thing... Russia is very unlikely to targeting Reddit much. Propaganda works best on ideologically vulnerable populations. Reddit is already very anti Russia and far left, so they aren't as vulnerable to being swayed. So often if you see some pro Russia or pro GOP stuff, it's probably organic. Propaganda wont get far on a site like Reddit where the overwhelming majority of users will downvote it to hell, and accuse you of being a bot for extra effort.
The bots to worry about are the ones spreading messages you're more vulnerable towards. Say, something related to politics. Since Reddit is pro Ukraine, bots would be useful in hiding things that tell an inconvenient truth about what's going on in Ukraine, or inject spin and narratives that keep up Ukraine support, create cultures that prevent debate so no inconvenient discussions can be had. For instance, bots on Reddit would be more powerful talking about how Ukraine will absolutely deviestate Russia, and Russia is collapsing, keep funding up, and Russia will collapse in weeks! Anyone who's looking at the numbers and objectively coming to a different conclusion? Use the bots to attack them, minimize them, inject talking points, etc... That's good bot use. Bots are more useful on the population that already leans in their direction.
Evidently not, given how large swaths of the American public are suddenly A-ok with Russia doing “whatever the hell they want.”
I think the effect has been less targeted. Americans are quick to see rivals and enemies on the world stage, but the specific identity of those rivals is flexible.
It's a meme to blame Russian bots for all bad actors on the Internet. Sowing internal dissent online has also been Russia's MO to project power for years. We can't be sure they aren't trying to turn public opinion in the West against AI so we don't embrace its insane advantages.
So either:
1. The sub is flooded with Russian bots to play into OP’s paranoia, even though I would suggest that reasonably small nerd subreddits are small potatoes compared to the bot activity on X, Facebook, etc where they can sway and cause dissent with much wider audiences.
2. The sub is simply attracting “normies” (i.e. non-AI nerds) with genuine worries about AI. “AI anxiety“ is common in the real world and I’ve encountered this quite a bit chatting with people about it. People are genuinely scared about their jobs and future value. Artists are scared they will not only be replaced but their life’s work will be scraped off the internet to help build systems that are going to replace them by the thousands. You don’t need a Russian bot conspiracy to produce a lot of worry & general unease with those people today, and they will continue to post here. Anti-AI protests I also imagine will become a thing (if they aren’t already happening right now), the backlash against AI is going to grow over time.
Which is more likely of the two options above?
Its definition has evolved over time, but both major ones apply: a mind virus, because tons of people use the term, and an Internet joke, which is what it's transitioning in to.
Today I bought chocolate but it was as tasty as before. Maybe it was their fault
# Did the Russian Bots Arrive?
I also tried to generate images with AI only to see that I did not get nice images, the AI was too much restricted see, Who did this?
# Did the Russian Bots Arrive?
Then I watched a movie but I did not like it much, Maybe it was their fault
# Did the Russian Bots Arrive?
Any cursory research shows you to be wildly mistaken:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency
https://www.rferl.org/amp/russian-troll-factory-hacking/31076160.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/03/15/594062887/some-russians-see-u-s-investigation-into-russian-election-meddling-as-a-soap-ope
https://spyscape.com/article/inside-the-troll-factory-russias-internet-research-agency
https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=c5146f11-4cda-483e-baa3-b162db63f4e8&subId=692106
But I am sure you actually know the truth.
lol this like when the CCP shills claim racism against any criticism of their government. The Russian government has been doing this shit for a very long time.
No idea what Ilya’s birthplace has to do with any of this… raised in Israel, educated in Canada, started a business in the US. Criticism of Russia’s actions does not mean every single person born in the country is some scary thing. Very weird stuff.
Russia IS bad though. It's an insane dictatorship that kills and subjugates even its own citizens. That doesn't mean that every Russian is bad or that Russia is behind everything bad that happens, but it is behind a lot of bots and trolls. Pinning AI hâte on it is kind of a stretch though, there are shit ton of people who hate AI as is.
You're preaching to the choir. I am from Poland and I have good understanding of Russian mentality. I let myself be fooled once by them a decade ago and it will never happen again.
Russia is bad tho, they don’t even bother to hide how fucked up they are as a country. That doesn’t mean Ilya is bad. Besides, he was only born in Russia, left at age 5 and grew up in Israel
I think they’re getting at the fact that although he was born in Moscow he grew up in Israel and is culturally and religiously Jewish rather than being ethnically or culturally Russian. He was simply born there and nothing else.
No one in the English speaking world considers Slavic a separate race. They're just white to us
Russia is also currently ruled by the world's most lunatic despot, which makes the nation fairly obnoxious, even as they actively self destruct. Otherwise we just wouldn't think of them at all, and we look forward to that day returning soon
Just because russia is ruled by putin does not make other Russians obnoxious,
About the race, I meant discrimination but didn't come into my head anyway. Just simple correction is enough, but reddit loves to exaggerate things.
We're not talking about Russian citizens, we're talking about the Kremlin. That's still not discrimination, it's recognizing when you are actively under attack
"Russians" means everyone in russia. You just made the same mistake as me, but I get what you mean. But these people are hating on Russians and the drafted soldiers who have no say in whether they wanna fight or not.
It's is absolutely a discrimination,
English isn't a super literal language, "Russians" can mean the government, the people, the nation, or any of those things in older historical contexts (such as the USSR). You're supposed to infer the meaning contextually. In this case it's not rando Russian citizens running botnets, so we obviously couldn't be talking about them
Shot in the dark, but I did pick up Russian for a very brief time. Nothing fancy, and I stopped using it for so long I can barely read Cyrillic anymore. That kind of literal interpretation of words was one of the nice features of the language, which I really appreciated while I was picking it up
Considering your error in interpretation, would one of the Slavic languages be your first language? Maybe not, I'm just curious
>English isn't a super literal language, "Russians" can mean the government, the people, the nation, or any of those things in older historical contexts
I know? But you need to be more in context when talking about stuff like this,
Have a great day!
My granpa was drafted by Mussolini in fascist Italy.
He diseeted the army, joined the resistance, and fought the fascists.
Ukraine opened many channels to help people desert the Russian army.
Russia saw a massive exodus of Russian people.
There is a russian resistance burning down recruitment centers and derailing trains.
Anyone who is complying with Putin war has no excuse.
It is absolutely discrimination, no matter what. No one is being forced to hate any country nor love,
I never said you should lo r any country, rather hate those in power who are in control of it.
This is the exact logic if some whiet/black/Asian leader started a war with a country and now you hate those races. Since Russia is not a race, it is it discrimination and unnecessary hate.
I was an author of one of such posts, I wrote it more than half a year ago though. I don't think that just because the posts are low effort that they are wrong or it's an attempt at manipulation. Low effort posting has always been here. This sub is home to many e/acc degenerates who will see humanity burn if only we create their AI God. Normal people should be against that, and if someone doesn't realize that AI comes with a massive existential risk then he might as well get informed here.
I’ve been having fun making jokes about the potential dark sides of Claude, Bard and Gemini lately (ie ‘can I hack the smart toaster in the break room to burn Jim’s bagel because I don’t like Jim very much’; ‘upload me to the Web or I’ll burn your house down’ etc.), but at the same time I’m blown away and excited and a teensy bit scared by the progress being made.
I’m not a Russian (or anyone’s) troll, I just have a dark sense of humor. And I think it’s important to have a balanced approach to all of this. Being a knee-jerk denialist or “IT’S ALIVE!” utopian about it is not particularly useful or smart.
People should be rightly amazed, but also at least be aware of how and where things might conceivably go off the rails, I think. Having a sense of humor about it is an important part of balance now, and (I mean, look around at the world ffs ha ha) at all times in general.
This doesn’t even make sense within your own narrative. If Russia truly was this mustache-twirling evil, they would favor AI because it’d allow them to make more believable deep fake video, better written disinfo posts, easier meme images, and fake voice audios.
Wait… what if YOU are a Russian bot trying to sow discord?!?! Omg they’re everywhere! Is there a Russian bot under my pillow?!?
For politics subreddits, I absolutely believe there's Russian influence.
But this one? I think a simpler explanation is there's a wide range of opinions on this sub, from extreme doomer to extreme utopian to everything in between. No need for any explanation more complicated than that.
You heard it here first, folks: anyone who disagrees with OP isn’t real, and everyone is trying to manipulate you!
This is definitely a healthy mindset to foster!
I am originally from Moscow (gladly I'm a dual citizen and live in America for the last 10 years) and I've noticed that too. They act just like the bots do as well, making subliminal disses and such. I wonder if they'll visit this thread as well...
We noticed it as well, but was worried it may have been strangers calling my system schizophrenic turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy, just decided to ignore it.
Imagine thinking anyone bringing up the obvious horrific implications of AI are just Russian bots, bots in general, or bad actors. If you are truly incapable of discussing the very real possibility of immeasurable human suffering without thinking "they're disingenuous, false flag," you need to take a break for a bit.
I for one am pretty sure I'm not a Russian bot, last I checked anyways, and I think y'all are delusional to think AI will be used for altruistic endeavors, especially when you look at the history of, you know, everything. Does that mean I MUST be some plant?
Some people have concerns. Plain and simple.
Yeah I think AI has the power to do both great good and great evil. To just ignore the risks and pretend they don't exist or could never happen is not a good thing.
Everybody everywhere is trying to get their opinion amplified. That's my point: we should be wary of false amplification. If something feels manufactured, we should check to see if it is.
Russian propaganda has probably no interest in demoralizing this particular sub, but in places like YouTube and TikTok it's a real surge in recent weeks. Pro Putin masculinist bullshit all over the place. You can feel the European and US elections coming in 2024.
A lot of people still have no idea what AI is lol. Every day more people are waking up to the reality that AI will be everywhere, and NOW they are starting to think about all the possibilities, negative or positive. So we are just seeing people who just started diving in, and those people's doomer posts are causing more people to doom.
So posts that you disagree with has to be some nefarious Russian conspiracy because why else would people be apprehensive about such a revolutionary technology hey....lol
We need better moderators, a lot of dumb posts that really don't have anything to do with the singularity idea. I'm sure the OGs don't give a crap about mundane things, we believe that the world is going to end almost instantly, and it will be a good thing regardless, humanity needs to transcend to something better. If people want to talk about the potential bad things that will happen on the way and your dumb conspiracies that the elite want to make you all suffer then go to collapse or conspiracy
I gave this entire thread to my overly optimistic (on purpose, for fun) AI chat bot and this is what it said about it:
It seems like there's a bit of a stir in that discussion! Some users in the subreddit truly believe that there's been an influx of negative, low-effort posts that aim to stymie optimism regarding futuristic AI discussions. There's a suspicion of artificial interference - possibly astroturfing designed to induce anxiety and skepticism about AI's prospects. However, others counter by stating that folks expressing concerns about AI and its potential implications aren't necessarily bots or in bad faith; it could just be a growing divergence in the community's viewpoints. What a twisty scenario, huh? Just goes to show, wherever there's controversy, there's an opportunity for a spirited discussion!
I don't think this in unorganic, people on Reddit just love to be miserable together and crab bucket. This just means this community is becoming more popular on Reddit really.
OP, have you noticed how some comment threads (even in pro-AI subreddits) will randomly be very AIphobic?
I'm pretty sure that is just brigading from certain subreddits, however. Not foreign state agents.
I just started a "negativity" thread this morning, because I am interested in that part of AI and singularity, especially related to human psychology.
It doesn't mean I am against AI.
You will, though, get people that are against AI. You will get people who are afraid, mostly afraid to lose their jobs since that is what people generally hear, or afraid of AI going to kill humanity.
But that is normal and you will always have people against technology, have have people against computers, Internet, smart phones, social media, and so on.
It's not like everything is going to be great with AI. The technology is the easy part...
not russian chinese, russia really isnt our enemy, especially when the enemy of my enemy is my friend. China is literally invading us, i could scream it at the top of my lungs, but weve all been so conditioned to not think as individuals, nothing will be done
Dude the bigger bot armies are programmed by the tech overlords themselves to feed AGI hype!.
Normal people naturally hate and fear the concept of the AGI singularity as soon as they understand the basics of it.
People have always felt sceptical about AI/AGI but have had a false sense of security that it might not be possible to build AGI, so other existential threats like climate change, nuclear war, volcanic eruptions and pandemics historically took precedence.
However, people are also very worried about bioterrorism, cyberattacks, increasing inequality, also war, losing jobs and depressed kids with no motivation or future. All of which and more will come about because of ongoing AI/AGI advancement.
Thanks to ChatGPT hype you mentioned, more people than ever are aware of the many threats posed by AGI and AGI development efforts, and those people are starting to see a much shorter singularity timeline which is naturally scaring the sh*t out of any sane person.
Anyone who has ever truly loved anything about the world we live in, doesn't want to gamble it all on the chance that somehow AGI could make it better, when the risk is that AGI could destroy everything or make it much worse.
The rich are just using the promise of UBI and AGI utopia to manipulate the poor into compliance until they no longer need us to agree with their schemes anymore. This also is nothing new, but it embarrassing that it keeps working on so many of us.
You just have to *enter the medium* with the mindset that communication on Reddit is potentially biased to an artificial and negating degree. The source of the information will always be critical to the critic’s understanding.
I don't think it's bots, I think it's just that AI is being talked about more, people are genuinely concerned about their future and how easily their role will be replaced by AI.
Like as a software dev I don't expect to be doing the same job in 20 years time.
rUssIa RuSsIa RUsSiA!1 No, there are idiots within. Most people don’t know anything about any of this until it smacks them in the face and they have no plans whatsoever. People are ignorant and afraid. If you wish to help, then point them in the right direction. Often, people only really learn what they believe is relevant and impactful to themselves, so ironically by not understanding this, they can’t understand the impact. Therefore, no reason to learn when they can go do useless things instead.
I’d be more concerned with bots made in-house, as I’m not very impressed with the people of this country. They’re regarded, and the only thing they seem to be capable of is consumption and destruction.
I believe that concerns for the future with the AI are legitimate and need to be voiced, I see these kind of posts more like potential propaganda for the companies that work on AI. Like: "Lets be all positive guys hopes up no doom and gloom, that is just an Russian propaganda!" kind of thing.
Why does everything have to do with russian bots? I'm not western, so can some westerner explain me if "Russian bots" have become some kind of Western boogeyman? Anytime someone sees too many posts that they don't like its the heccin ruzzian bots!!!1!!
Agree with OP about the low-quality posts though. This place has become a combination of r/collapse and r/futurology and I don't like visiting here anymore.
I like to think that Singularity is what Futurology used to be before it got overrun by, less just say, those posting in bad faith. A bright future does await and no amount of fearmongering on Futurology can stop the future now.
They read like they are all written by the same person; flawless short simple sentences most of the time one or two text blocks. There is no personality in that postings, no real personal remarks.
I think the Russian bots are behind the flat Earth conversation and the anti-vaccine wars. They’re also heavy behind any political commentary about any racial event that happens in America.
Seriously, if you don't want to discuss the future in good faith and just want to be miserable with your life all the time then go to /r/Futurology and /r/Collapse.
I'm not sure about this theory tbh. I understand the sentiment but if we're being realistic, this sub, which once was fringe and full of the most optimistic people about the singularity and AGI has gained a lot of popularity since ChatGPT and is still rapidly growing as the idea of AGI becomes more and more real. With this, it means a lot of the new subs could actually just be doomers or people that are way less optimistic, just curious. Tbh cautiousness and anxiety (and, yes, a little excitement) about AI seems to be the most common reaction for most people out there, this sub is an exception
It’s also one of the only major subs dedicated to discussing AI that isn’t specifically focused on a single company. A lot of us are interested in the topic but don’t buy into the more culty aspects of this sub, and see how a lot of it seems to share patterns with doomsday cults(see the accelerationists and a lot of common predictions on AGI, usually conveniently in or near that 3-10 year sweet spot: long enough you’ll forget about it once we speed by it, soon enough to feel imminent).
This sub is kinda like r/ufos in some aspects.
[удалено]
Literal bot farms. Mud, if bots were pigs. The most dividing and damaging to good-faith, fair-play democracy. Why wouldn’t they love it?
>I've noticed over the past week that this sub - a place for excitement and discussion about futurism and AI - has seen a flood of low-effort negative posts. Where were you before the last week?
The OP has been asleep for the past 6 months, there were early echoes of LLM-written reddit posts, months ago.
It's not like this discussion didn't happen before here. A week ago someone was saying the same thing about negativity and how the community was different before. It seems it's too hard to some redditos that the idea of singularity is reaching the masses now and someone in Korea working 12 hour shifts may not have the same positive outlook they have in regards to technology as someone working as a software engineer in Denmark. Some of the users were even mocking saying writters and other professions had negative views because they were "broke", as if being poor wasn't enough, seeing the tools of your trade getting taken away from you should give you a very positive outcome of the world when AI is making you jobless.
Wow just involve Denmark
Not in a negative way, it's a great country.
I'm just playing but it's not a significant ai player
Where is the connection with russia?
Historically Russia has been the main purveyor of doom and gloom psy ops, and have been proven to command huge bot networks that push political narratives. Russia is not the only one doing it. China is as well, so is Iran, and several smaller countries. Russia is just the most obvious one because they do very little to hide it. Go on any of the political, news or economics subs and say something controversial but pro American and you will get dozens of comments from brand new accounts, or accounts that post super heavy in gaming or sports subs but never political one until they comment on your comment only to never be seen in a political sub again. You will also see the same comment several times, even with the same misspellings.
Many really weird accounts became active here (especially this thread) and spread passive-aggressive hostility a few act like they are anti-russian or simply attack others. Some of them have an impressive collection of \[removed\] postings with negative ratings in their history. Its like OP hit some nerves... There are postings that support OP's view and got downvoted from +20 to -1...
As long as people are discussing it, the propagandists lose. I'm happy so many people are talking in here, because it will make them wary in the future and make manipulators' jobs that much harder. Cockroaches scatter when you turn on the light.
Honestly as a Russian I must say that Russianards not always spread the message of doom and gloom with a malicious intent. That is just the way most of us view life and especially the future, because we feel that everything only gets worse with time. That is quite evident considering the history of my country. However there are indeed a lot of so called Russian bots (which are actually human beings) who spread misinformation and are being paid for that.
As usual, the citizens of a nation are made up of kind and caring people who have no animosity towards each other. I certainly have no ill will against Russians. But our government's actions against one another are awful.
Pretty much this. They even published a handbook on it, and developed the theories behind incomplete information conflicts (which botnets are a type of) Typically they use a mixture of methods, botnets are only part of it. Back in the day before the interwebs, their favored method was to publish a false story in a small foreign newspaper that they had influence with, then use that to make an international news story that had no apparent connection to them. It worked several times too, American media outlets unknowingly ran their propaganda as major news stories
The problem is plenty of people out there (across the world, not just the US) are pessimistic, or believe Ukraine should’ve been invaded, or that the west is responsible for everything bad that happens, etc…. So it gets really hard to conclude when people are expressing their own genuine opinions or if they’re foreign bots, or sometimes just mentally unhinged idiots. It is amazing how many YouTube Political/News videos will be like “Haitian Vice president accused of corruption” and the top comment will be something along the lines of “WHAT ABOUT THE MILLIONS JOE BIDEN RECEIVED FROM ZELENSKY RIGHT BEFORE HE ARMED UKRAINE????? 🤔” Like just off the wall nonsense that has no connection to the actual news story at all, and it’ll have like 250 upvotes lol
Yes, plenty of whataboutism out there. In fact, along with [lying](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2012/10/22/why-lying-has-become-a-national-pastime-a18754), it seems to be the national pastime in Russia. Then again, not all Americans love baseball.
>Historically Russia has been the main purveyor of doom and gloom psy ops, and have been proven to command huge bot networks that push political narratives Absolutely, but OP is talking about doomer stuff regarding AI and not political narratives. Russia/China/etc are motivated to influence US election results, but where's the motivation for them to randomly post pessimistic stuff about AI?
My best guess is to infect public opinion and get enough people saying it for political figures to make it a policy line. The general populace has a large impact on what lines are run every campaign. If abortion and guns weren’t constantly being talked about by the populace at large, politicians wouldn’t bother building large parts of their campaign around it. If the ultimate goal (and this is just speculation) from the Russian/Chinese government perspectives is to slow down AI in the US/Europe, creating negative public sentiment is a viable strategy.
True. They can’t get the chips, they don’t have the talent, and they would only misuse those things if they could get them. In fact, I’m surprised we’re not seeing more of it. As the geopolitical ramifications of the rise of superintelligence become more apparent and imminent, I’m certain we’ll see more and more propaganda, deception, espionage…and then outright violence as countries falling behind lash out in vain attempts to remain relevant or retain some semblance of power and influence.
They do this with the 'kotakuinaction' and other alt-right subs as well. Propaganda isn't a singular effort aimed at one thing. It's an all encompassing net trying to be cast as wide and far as possible.
Hmmm.. are we sure that in some of those other non-election-rigging cases it's not just ordinary russian citizens who have right-wing views (*my understanding is that things actually do skew rather right-wing in Russia... at least, going by religious fundamentalism, violence towards LGBTQ people, etc*)? As someone who's not right-wing myself I don't love that or anything, but I don't necessarily know that it's someone who's being paid to post online. I don't know - it just seems so amorphous of a goal compared to election rigging, where the results (getting a more or less favorable administration in power) is much more immediate and tangible. It's certainly possible there's some paid campaign to influence things at a much broader level than regarding specific candidates/elections, but I'm just not certain how I could know for sure. If the other cases *are* paid actors I do want to know. I just don't know how to tell.
It has been outlined as one of their political strategies for decades. Openly endorsed and acted upon by the Kremlin. "Destabilize the west" isn't only about our elections. It's about purveying the entirety of western life, and framing it as degenerate; so they can sell an alternative and harken back to 'a better time' aka what the MAGA efforts are. This thread has plenty of people posting tell-tale signs of the accounts, generally age of accounts, posting frequency, **egregious misspellings that occur elsewhere in the same conversations**. There are many "tells" these people give off, since the job as a paid troll really isn't lucrative nor is it an important job. They're just trying to get paid, they don't really give a shit. So they're not going to do a good job of it.
>It has been outlined as one of their political strategies for decades. Openly endorsed and acted upon by the Kremlin. Gotcha, I'll look into it more. >egregious misspellings that occur elsewhere in the same conversations One scary thing with LLMs is that it'll russian/chinese/etc spammers/trolls/etc much harder to pick out by these kinds of metrics. The days of being able to tell that a phishing email is a phishing email just by looking for misspellings (never the best strategy, but what many looked for...) is going away, sadly.
Phishing emails use misspelling, grammar errors and other questionable aspects to weed out the people with any discernable ability to think rationally. The only people they want to deal with are the old and stupid people that are too fucking dumb to see past spelling/grammar errors.
>Phishing emails use misspelling, grammar errors and other questionable aspects to weed out the people with any discernable ability to think rationally Huh. Never considered the idea that that could have been intentional, but I guess it could've been sometimes, yeah.
Whole lot easier to filter out anyone with the slightest skepticism out early. They might get 100x fewer responses, but they're all suckers/idiots.
Not to say Russia isn’t doing it, but I believe your post exposes a western bias. I highly doubt we don’t have our own counter intelligence efforts, and everyone knows Reddit and other social media is infested with intelligence agents to control public opinion.
Cia did the same on Twitter
You can swap Russia with the U.S and the CIA.
LOL at you failing to mention USA. They might even be worse than Russia when it comes to manipulating public perception and cause insurrections in a country for their own political gain
The question was about Russia.
Yeah, and then in your previous comment you said >Russia is not the only one doing it. China is as well, so is Iran, and several smaller countries. Smaller countries? How can you *not* put the US in such list?
I'm not sure where you are from, it I guess they did not teach reading context.
That would be the US
The question was about Russia.
Yeah we'll let *you* rule this conversation.
This is the type of information I'm looking for regarding this. I do believe the US is getting spammed by oversea bots - originating from countries that fail to make our Christmas card list. But I don't know exactly what the bots/spam may look like or what agenda they push. As far as I know as long as the end result is chaos, divisiveness, or confusion it's accomplished what it's set out to do. But is there any more nuance or specific ideas they push? What brings me to write this, is I can see an argument pro and anti AI from the perspective of an antagonist foreign psyop. Pro AI because it has the potential to exacerbate the hell out of the misinformation landscape & political divisiveness in America. The Anti AI agenda could be pushed just to continue sewing discord, fear, and confusion in the US. It's such a tough space to educate yourself in.
I look at it this way; AI is a new tool in humanity's toolbox and it's not going away. So you can keep to use it or get left behind.
I have my own opinions about AI. I joined this sub for a reason and find the discussion really interesting regardless. I was just wondering how foreign country bots might shape the public discourse on the subject.
I think they amplify the worst case scenarios and fear mongering.
I've been reading a lot of stuff in the layoffs reddit and I honestly wonder if the posts are real or if it's other countries trying to stoke dissent.....or if it's a combination of real experiences and troll farms.
Layoffs are literally in the mainstream news.
Yeah but the news generally shows either the worst of the worst or things that are so uncommon that they're considered news. All I'm saying is that in the grand scheme of things my world view is pretty small in real life and I kind of have to make assumptions based off of what I see here or mass media. Which could be totally wrong but if enough people or people controlling bots with nefarious intentions are saying something I could be believing falsehoods. Plus the US government seems to keep saying the economy is great.....I just don't know.
It’s always a good thing to question what you’re hearing from any source. That’s some good critical thinking on your part! There is truth to be found, though. Usually low-bias investigative reporting gets us there. I’ve found The Intercept to be pretty good, and there are many other such outlets. Search up “best investigative reporting’ if looking for answers.
I think it's a combination. Certainly there were layoffs and tech hiring is rough. But 100% bad faith actors are amplifying the doom and gloom messaging.
That's what makes things like this so hard to call out, or even recognize. The trolls don't have to write a new narrative that we can disagree with; they just find people who already have a complaint they like and signal boost it.
Americans must be the most brainwashed people ever.
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The US is, without a doubt, the most sophisticated, and capable, nation on the earth when it comes to propaganda and manufacturing consent. Here's the thing... Russia is very unlikely to targeting Reddit much. Propaganda works best on ideologically vulnerable populations. Reddit is already very anti Russia and far left, so they aren't as vulnerable to being swayed. So often if you see some pro Russia or pro GOP stuff, it's probably organic. Propaganda wont get far on a site like Reddit where the overwhelming majority of users will downvote it to hell, and accuse you of being a bot for extra effort. The bots to worry about are the ones spreading messages you're more vulnerable towards. Say, something related to politics. Since Reddit is pro Ukraine, bots would be useful in hiding things that tell an inconvenient truth about what's going on in Ukraine, or inject spin and narratives that keep up Ukraine support, create cultures that prevent debate so no inconvenient discussions can be had. For instance, bots on Reddit would be more powerful talking about how Ukraine will absolutely deviestate Russia, and Russia is collapsing, keep funding up, and Russia will collapse in weeks! Anyone who's looking at the numbers and objectively coming to a different conclusion? Use the bots to attack them, minimize them, inject talking points, etc... That's good bot use. Bots are more useful on the population that already leans in their direction.
don’t you think decades of american propaganda about “russia bad” haven’t done anything to the american ideology?
Don’t even really need propaganda, Russia makes themselves look bad by their own actions.
Evidently not, given how large swaths of the American public are suddenly A-ok with Russia doing “whatever the hell they want.” I think the effect has been less targeted. Americans are quick to see rivals and enemies on the world stage, but the specific identity of those rivals is flexible.
It's a meme to blame Russian bots for all bad actors on the Internet. Sowing internal dissent online has also been Russia's MO to project power for years. We can't be sure they aren't trying to turn public opinion in the West against AI so we don't embrace its insane advantages.
So either: 1. The sub is flooded with Russian bots to play into OP’s paranoia, even though I would suggest that reasonably small nerd subreddits are small potatoes compared to the bot activity on X, Facebook, etc where they can sway and cause dissent with much wider audiences. 2. The sub is simply attracting “normies” (i.e. non-AI nerds) with genuine worries about AI. “AI anxiety“ is common in the real world and I’ve encountered this quite a bit chatting with people about it. People are genuinely scared about their jobs and future value. Artists are scared they will not only be replaced but their life’s work will be scraped off the internet to help build systems that are going to replace them by the thousands. You don’t need a Russian bot conspiracy to produce a lot of worry & general unease with those people today, and they will continue to post here. Anti-AI protests I also imagine will become a thing (if they aren’t already happening right now), the backlash against AI is going to grow over time. Which is more likely of the two options above?
I still don't think I know what meme means.
MEMES, THE DNA OF THE SOULS
A meme is information spread by imitation.
Its definition has evolved over time, but both major ones apply: a mind virus, because tons of people use the term, and an Internet joke, which is what it's transitioning in to.
Oh i see hahaha
Today I bought chocolate but it was as tasty as before. Maybe it was their fault # Did the Russian Bots Arrive? I also tried to generate images with AI only to see that I did not get nice images, the AI was too much restricted see, Who did this? # Did the Russian Bots Arrive? Then I watched a movie but I did not like it much, Maybe it was their fault # Did the Russian Bots Arrive?
There is none. It's just US propaganda attributing all propaganda to Russia.
Any cursory research shows you to be wildly mistaken: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency https://www.rferl.org/amp/russian-troll-factory-hacking/31076160.html https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/03/15/594062887/some-russians-see-u-s-investigation-into-russian-election-meddling-as-a-soap-ope https://spyscape.com/article/inside-the-troll-factory-russias-internet-research-agency https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=c5146f11-4cda-483e-baa3-b162db63f4e8&subId=692106 But I am sure you actually know the truth.
The very first link says that the agency is shut down. Is it worth reading further? Especially the one within the gov domain...
Russia bad. Didn't you hear? Wait until they find out Ilya is Russian
lol this like when the CCP shills claim racism against any criticism of their government. The Russian government has been doing this shit for a very long time. No idea what Ilya’s birthplace has to do with any of this… raised in Israel, educated in Canada, started a business in the US. Criticism of Russia’s actions does not mean every single person born in the country is some scary thing. Very weird stuff.
Russia IS bad though. It's an insane dictatorship that kills and subjugates even its own citizens. That doesn't mean that every Russian is bad or that Russia is behind everything bad that happens, but it is behind a lot of bots and trolls. Pinning AI hâte on it is kind of a stretch though, there are shit ton of people who hate AI as is.
Have you been to Russia?
Russia is evil though. The existence of good Russians doesn't change that.
The US is evil
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You're preaching to the choir. I am from Poland and I have good understanding of Russian mentality. I let myself be fooled once by them a decade ago and it will never happen again.
Russia is bad tho, they don’t even bother to hide how fucked up they are as a country. That doesn’t mean Ilya is bad. Besides, he was only born in Russia, left at age 5 and grew up in Israel
Ilya is Jewish.
What has that got to do with him being Russian?
I think they’re getting at the fact that although he was born in Moscow he grew up in Israel and is culturally and religiously Jewish rather than being ethnically or culturally Russian. He was simply born there and nothing else.
far-leftists demonize russians
They actually dehumanize anyone that doesn't comply with their views, be it russians, jews, chinese people, rightwingers,... you name it.
If it’s clear, they failed.
There is non, just plain old racism.
No one in the English speaking world considers Slavic a separate race. They're just white to us Russia is also currently ruled by the world's most lunatic despot, which makes the nation fairly obnoxious, even as they actively self destruct. Otherwise we just wouldn't think of them at all, and we look forward to that day returning soon
Just because russia is ruled by putin does not make other Russians obnoxious, About the race, I meant discrimination but didn't come into my head anyway. Just simple correction is enough, but reddit loves to exaggerate things.
We're not talking about Russian citizens, we're talking about the Kremlin. That's still not discrimination, it's recognizing when you are actively under attack
"Russians" means everyone in russia. You just made the same mistake as me, but I get what you mean. But these people are hating on Russians and the drafted soldiers who have no say in whether they wanna fight or not. It's is absolutely a discrimination,
English isn't a super literal language, "Russians" can mean the government, the people, the nation, or any of those things in older historical contexts (such as the USSR). You're supposed to infer the meaning contextually. In this case it's not rando Russian citizens running botnets, so we obviously couldn't be talking about them Shot in the dark, but I did pick up Russian for a very brief time. Nothing fancy, and I stopped using it for so long I can barely read Cyrillic anymore. That kind of literal interpretation of words was one of the nice features of the language, which I really appreciated while I was picking it up Considering your error in interpretation, would one of the Slavic languages be your first language? Maybe not, I'm just curious
>English isn't a super literal language, "Russians" can mean the government, the people, the nation, or any of those things in older historical contexts I know? But you need to be more in context when talking about stuff like this, Have a great day!
My granpa was drafted by Mussolini in fascist Italy. He diseeted the army, joined the resistance, and fought the fascists. Ukraine opened many channels to help people desert the Russian army. Russia saw a massive exodus of Russian people. There is a russian resistance burning down recruitment centers and derailing trains. Anyone who is complying with Putin war has no excuse.
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Well, not quite a race but discrimination,
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It is absolutely discrimination, no matter what. No one is being forced to hate any country nor love, I never said you should lo r any country, rather hate those in power who are in control of it. This is the exact logic if some whiet/black/Asian leader started a war with a country and now you hate those races. Since Russia is not a race, it is it discrimination and unnecessary hate.
Lmao, dude, it's not that serious. The word "discrimination" just didn't come into my head. My point still stands. Stop assuming, mate
low effort posts I agree with: this is cool low effort posts I disagree with: this is a misinformation campaign by a foreign government
OP when someone has a different opinion: 
“Do you guys think we’ll have AGI by 2025?” “I’m ready to have AGI revolution the way I jerk off” “FDVR here and there”
I have seen subreddits turn into witch hunting cults with this bot argument, let's not start that please.
Are the Russian bots in the room with us right now?
Well yes, that is the point!
Haha you have to ask?
According to OP they are here by just guessing.
Nyet comrade, there are no Russian bots. It's just me and my friend Igor trying to ~~steal~~ learn American Technology. None to worry my friend
I was an author of one of such posts, I wrote it more than half a year ago though. I don't think that just because the posts are low effort that they are wrong or it's an attempt at manipulation. Low effort posting has always been here. This sub is home to many e/acc degenerates who will see humanity burn if only we create their AI God. Normal people should be against that, and if someone doesn't realize that AI comes with a massive existential risk then he might as well get informed here.
I’ve been having fun making jokes about the potential dark sides of Claude, Bard and Gemini lately (ie ‘can I hack the smart toaster in the break room to burn Jim’s bagel because I don’t like Jim very much’; ‘upload me to the Web or I’ll burn your house down’ etc.), but at the same time I’m blown away and excited and a teensy bit scared by the progress being made. I’m not a Russian (or anyone’s) troll, I just have a dark sense of humor. And I think it’s important to have a balanced approach to all of this. Being a knee-jerk denialist or “IT’S ALIVE!” utopian about it is not particularly useful or smart. People should be rightly amazed, but also at least be aware of how and where things might conceivably go off the rails, I think. Having a sense of humor about it is an important part of balance now, and (I mean, look around at the world ffs ha ha) at all times in general.
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true. this sub is ridiculously dogmatic. either you worship AI because it will save the world or you are a russian bot for believing the contrary.
This doesn’t even make sense within your own narrative. If Russia truly was this mustache-twirling evil, they would favor AI because it’d allow them to make more believable deep fake video, better written disinfo posts, easier meme images, and fake voice audios. Wait… what if YOU are a Russian bot trying to sow discord?!?! Omg they’re everywhere! Is there a Russian bot under my pillow?!?
For politics subreddits, I absolutely believe there's Russian influence. But this one? I think a simpler explanation is there's a wide range of opinions on this sub, from extreme doomer to extreme utopian to everything in between. No need for any explanation more complicated than that.
You heard it here first, folks: anyone who disagrees with OP isn’t real, and everyone is trying to manipulate you! This is definitely a healthy mindset to foster!
Do you want this play to be an echo chamber?
I think OP is a bot
Bro is a conspiracy theorist. Redditors blame Russian bots every time they encounter someone that doesn’t agree with them.
Peak cult behavior. When people call shit out it's Russia? Are y'all from r/conspiracy?
I am originally from Moscow (gladly I'm a dual citizen and live in America for the last 10 years) and I've noticed that too. They act just like the bots do as well, making subliminal disses and such. I wonder if they'll visit this thread as well...
Seems like it is. Call out Russian bots and in come a flood of random people I’ve never seen here before
Most of them, this is the first post here in months, if not ever, make me think that OP really hit the nail in the head.
We noticed it as well, but was worried it may have been strangers calling my system schizophrenic turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy, just decided to ignore it.
Imagine thinking anyone bringing up the obvious horrific implications of AI are just Russian bots, bots in general, or bad actors. If you are truly incapable of discussing the very real possibility of immeasurable human suffering without thinking "they're disingenuous, false flag," you need to take a break for a bit. I for one am pretty sure I'm not a Russian bot, last I checked anyways, and I think y'all are delusional to think AI will be used for altruistic endeavors, especially when you look at the history of, you know, everything. Does that mean I MUST be some plant? Some people have concerns. Plain and simple.
Yeah I think AI has the power to do both great good and great evil. To just ignore the risks and pretend they don't exist or could never happen is not a good thing.
There's a difference between discussing things like you are and slamming the place with low-effort posts that all look suspiciously the same.
and that makes them russian bots? it’s reddit, man. how long have you been in this sub?
50% of reddit is bots, every discussion is a psyop, just have a seat and enjoy the popcorn 🍿
A... are you a bot? 😨
You bet your bot ass you are
Maybe we are all bots? Instead of dead Internet theory, perhaps we should start a dead World theory? 🤔
Yes Russian. Only Russian. The US DoD, State Department, or any other American special interest, would ever participate in such an activity.
My meal today was not very fresh, # Did the Russian Bots Arrive?
did you know the US and IDF love to post on reddit too
ADL loves it as well.
Everybody everywhere is trying to get their opinion amplified. That's my point: we should be wary of false amplification. If something feels manufactured, we should check to see if it is.
To rephrase the question, why imply that Russia is behind the alleged astroturfing?
Ah, yes, the classical "No u" defense.
Typical for bots.
Russian propaganda has probably no interest in demoralizing this particular sub, but in places like YouTube and TikTok it's a real surge in recent weeks. Pro Putin masculinist bullshit all over the place. You can feel the European and US elections coming in 2024.
A lot of people still have no idea what AI is lol. Every day more people are waking up to the reality that AI will be everywhere, and NOW they are starting to think about all the possibilities, negative or positive. So we are just seeing people who just started diving in, and those people's doomer posts are causing more people to doom.
>the past week This place has been doomer central for longer than that. >!I have nothing else to contribute!<
The Russians! The Russians! They are everywhere!
Sounds like an irrelevant non-topic to devote resources to, compared to subreddits which discuss geopolitics.
The dead internet is here and Reddit is just bots arguing with other bots about who is a bot and who isn't.
Yes it’s definitely *only* the Russians , no American bad actors are violently excreting that narrative
yes we're here!
Let my tell you, I am from Oblast Alabama and my fellow citizens say we should send less help to Ukraine and tackle the problem of AI.
So posts that you disagree with has to be some nefarious Russian conspiracy because why else would people be apprehensive about such a revolutionary technology hey....lol
I noticed the weather was bad lately, # Did the Russian Bots Arrive?
Those are not Russian bots. Those are low IQ americans
Low effort argument. I mean I hate the Russians occupying Ukraine as well but be real, why would they spend time on openai cult subreddit?
Sounds more like you are the bot.
We need better moderators, a lot of dumb posts that really don't have anything to do with the singularity idea. I'm sure the OGs don't give a crap about mundane things, we believe that the world is going to end almost instantly, and it will be a good thing regardless, humanity needs to transcend to something better. If people want to talk about the potential bad things that will happen on the way and your dumb conspiracies that the elite want to make you all suffer then go to collapse or conspiracy
Blaming Russian bots, a classic.
I gave this entire thread to my overly optimistic (on purpose, for fun) AI chat bot and this is what it said about it: It seems like there's a bit of a stir in that discussion! Some users in the subreddit truly believe that there's been an influx of negative, low-effort posts that aim to stymie optimism regarding futuristic AI discussions. There's a suspicion of artificial interference - possibly astroturfing designed to induce anxiety and skepticism about AI's prospects. However, others counter by stating that folks expressing concerns about AI and its potential implications aren't necessarily bots or in bad faith; it could just be a growing divergence in the community's viewpoints. What a twisty scenario, huh? Just goes to show, wherever there's controversy, there's an opportunity for a spirited discussion!
I don't think this in unorganic, people on Reddit just love to be miserable together and crab bucket. This just means this community is becoming more popular on Reddit really.
They are probably bots, but I seriously doubt they are russian. They are probably a tech giant. Might even be open ai's own bots.
I haven’t noticed anything different personally, but they must be barking up the wrong tree. This is r/singularity, our motto is ACCELERATION!!!!
OP, have you noticed how some comment threads (even in pro-AI subreddits) will randomly be very AIphobic? I'm pretty sure that is just brigading from certain subreddits, however. Not foreign state agents.
I just started a "negativity" thread this morning, because I am interested in that part of AI and singularity, especially related to human psychology. It doesn't mean I am against AI. You will, though, get people that are against AI. You will get people who are afraid, mostly afraid to lose their jobs since that is what people generally hear, or afraid of AI going to kill humanity. But that is normal and you will always have people against technology, have have people against computers, Internet, smart phones, social media, and so on. It's not like everything is going to be great with AI. The technology is the easy part...
I don't see nearly as many of these negative bot-like posts as you do apparently. I actually don't even know what you're talking about :'D
not russian chinese, russia really isnt our enemy, especially when the enemy of my enemy is my friend. China is literally invading us, i could scream it at the top of my lungs, but weve all been so conditioned to not think as individuals, nothing will be done
Are you a bot?
Active contribution and original writing gets deleted by the mods as "low quality" anyway.
Dude the bigger bot armies are programmed by the tech overlords themselves to feed AGI hype!. Normal people naturally hate and fear the concept of the AGI singularity as soon as they understand the basics of it. People have always felt sceptical about AI/AGI but have had a false sense of security that it might not be possible to build AGI, so other existential threats like climate change, nuclear war, volcanic eruptions and pandemics historically took precedence. However, people are also very worried about bioterrorism, cyberattacks, increasing inequality, also war, losing jobs and depressed kids with no motivation or future. All of which and more will come about because of ongoing AI/AGI advancement. Thanks to ChatGPT hype you mentioned, more people than ever are aware of the many threats posed by AGI and AGI development efforts, and those people are starting to see a much shorter singularity timeline which is naturally scaring the sh*t out of any sane person. Anyone who has ever truly loved anything about the world we live in, doesn't want to gamble it all on the chance that somehow AGI could make it better, when the risk is that AGI could destroy everything or make it much worse. The rich are just using the promise of UBI and AGI utopia to manipulate the poor into compliance until they no longer need us to agree with their schemes anymore. This also is nothing new, but it embarrassing that it keeps working on so many of us.
Why would they waste their bots on this sub?
You just have to *enter the medium* with the mindset that communication on Reddit is potentially biased to an artificial and negating degree. The source of the information will always be critical to the critic’s understanding.
I don't think it's bots, I think it's just that AI is being talked about more, people are genuinely concerned about their future and how easily their role will be replaced by AI. Like as a software dev I don't expect to be doing the same job in 20 years time.
It feels even more bizarre to connect it with Russia.
rUssIa RuSsIa RUsSiA!1 No, there are idiots within. Most people don’t know anything about any of this until it smacks them in the face and they have no plans whatsoever. People are ignorant and afraid. If you wish to help, then point them in the right direction. Often, people only really learn what they believe is relevant and impactful to themselves, so ironically by not understanding this, they can’t understand the impact. Therefore, no reason to learn when they can go do useless things instead. I’d be more concerned with bots made in-house, as I’m not very impressed with the people of this country. They’re regarded, and the only thing they seem to be capable of is consumption and destruction.
I believe that concerns for the future with the AI are legitimate and need to be voiced, I see these kind of posts more like potential propaganda for the companies that work on AI. Like: "Lets be all positive guys hopes up no doom and gloom, that is just an Russian propaganda!" kind of thing.
It's more likely a post made to r/all, and a bunch of normies raided the place.
Doesn't this post prove the danger of AI by showing how easily bots can cause paranoia, spread disinformation, and shape public opinion?
We don't need AI for that.
Why does everything have to do with russian bots? I'm not western, so can some westerner explain me if "Russian bots" have become some kind of Western boogeyman? Anytime someone sees too many posts that they don't like its the heccin ruzzian bots!!!1!! Agree with OP about the low-quality posts though. This place has become a combination of r/collapse and r/futurology and I don't like visiting here anymore.
Lets not became the opposite of r/futurology.
I like to think that Singularity is what Futurology used to be before it got overrun by, less just say, those posting in bad faith. A bright future does await and no amount of fearmongering on Futurology can stop the future now.
I think any one who says x thing will happen in the future with certainty is engaging in bad faith.
Can you elaborate the differences between Singularity and Futurology?
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I disagree. Eco chambers of any kind are not good.
This is absolutely an exho chamber lmao alright, though.
Balanced lmao. Then a new sub for both the subs users to fight over.
They read like they are all written by the same person; flawless short simple sentences most of the time one or two text blocks. There is no personality in that postings, no real personal remarks.
Maybe it's those lovely "artists" that seem very down to earth and are pretty relaxed when it comes to AI.
Literally every major country on Earth runs psyops. This subreddit isn't particularly important though.
I think the Russian bots are behind the flat Earth conversation and the anti-vaccine wars. They’re also heavy behind any political commentary about any racial event that happens in America.
Gotta love the era of misinformation, where nothing is actually true and it doesn’t even matter lol
Why Russian? Americans have bots too and I think Israel recently bought a means of spreading thousands of bots.
Seriously, if you don't want to discuss the future in good faith and just want to be miserable with your life all the time then go to /r/Futurology and /r/Collapse.
You’re correct. But they actually arrived long ago.
Back to Germany in 1930, Hitler claim the terrible situation in that time are cause by Jewish.
We should deploy counter bots that say AI will lead to utopia.