I'm finding it very difficult to approach this with an open mind. I agree that it's inevitable - in much the same way that plagiarism and reward farming is inevitable on a platform that pays users for doing "stuff". I can't remember seeing a discussion about how we can use plagiarism or reward farming to benefit the platform.
I can't put a finger on exactly what I'm struggling to accept with this. It could be that I can't see how a platform that is entirely reliant upon human interaction can benefit from the use of AI generated content. How does an automated reply to anything improve it in a space that is so heavily dependent upon the human element?
And whilst this is being discussed in relation to a single user (a highly respected witness), I return to the consequence of "Yes, this test was successful"... xpilar.witness gets a higher ranking, earns a little extra through this AI-comment-bot and then what? All of the other witnesses around the Top 20 see it as a model for success and we have 10 other witnesses doing the same. Perhaps the "rules" loosen as more get involved and the AI commenting becomes more competitive.
Quite simply, the whole thing "feels wrong" to me. It did when the initial "test" was launched and got exactly the reaction I'd have expected. Now, an extremely long AI generated post, justifying why it's great has been shared - a post which if you pick apart, doesn't even support itself.
Active Ecosystem: Developers are more likely to build on platforms that demonstrate active user engagement and a thriving community.
Active User Engagement - NOT "Active Bot Engagement".
Increased Activity: More interactions mean more transactions on the blockchain, showcasing its capacity to handle a bustling ecosystem.
How's this positive?
Maximizing the Use of the Steem Blockchain:
This one isn't even justified.
Rich Data for Development: Enhanced engagement generates valuable data that can inform future developments and optimizations, ensuring Steem remains at the forefront of blockchain technology.
This is about as AI as you'll get. An entire sentence that appears to sound intelligent but doesn't say anything. What "valuable data" are we planning to collect? What are we studying? What are we trying to prove? What's our hypothesis so that we measure the correct metrics?
What was the prompt for this post? "Write a post outlining how AI generated comments can enhance community engagement on the Steemit blockchain. Use emojis."
So this discussion goes well beyond what is actually being discussed. This won't be the last time I'll open a post from xpilar and wonder if it's been generated via AI. This isn't why I became friends with xpilar. This isn't how I want to feel whenever I read a post by xpilar. And xpilar's supported so many users on this platform who will be inspired by this... not just inspired, but they'll feel validated that their brand of AI generated content is ok. And perhaps that's what the community will decide - we will embrace AI and allow it to proliferate.
I know I'm ranting. It's a topic that I clearly have a very strong opinion upon but lack the words to express it. You could even say it's an opinion / feeling (dare I say - core belief) that runs so deep, that I can't understand why everybody doesn't think the same (the Earth is flat I tells ya) making this discussion unnecessary.
AI has been a bothersome subject for me for a long time, dating back to when my wife and I had an actual brick-and-mortar art gallery here in our town, and we were increasingly dealing not only with the impact of digital art, but — towards the end — AI assisted digital art.
Early Art AI — like the "Night Café" web site — was pushing the envelope on "creativity" that was basically machine learning. Is that art? And if not, what IS it?
Stopped having to deal directly with it because the gallery became a permanent victim of Covid lockdowns.
At the risk of writing my own dissertation in response to yours... some of this brings use face-to-face with something everybody seemed to really want to avoid in the early days, namely "What IS Steemit?"
It's not so much a question asked to put the community into some kind of box... as it is the question of this being "social media" or an "income opportunity." Those two are very different beasts and require substantially different approached, not least in the context of who you are trying to onboard as the "ideal user."
I was reading @soulsdetour's post yesterday, which also touched on what kind of world it is we are building... hereunder the implications of AI. To which I want to add "AI in the context of Web 3.0."
The irony there — which often makes me just want to beat myself over the head with my keyboard in frustration — is that we have all these Web 3.0 fanboys/fangirls touting this new frontier while waving their (figurative) banners to abandon the matrix while being proponents of AI which precisely is likely to put us right back INTO that matrix.
WTF, over?
Anyway, to bring the bunny back around... I'm only interested in AI as "information service," not as anything more. And that's where we have issues with AI on Steemit.
As I allude to in my most recent post, I don't mind AI telling me something like "I noticed you've posted about nature three times in a row; have you considered joining Steemit's Nature Photography community?" Totally appropriate use of AI: helps with content discovery and potentially with keeping people interested and engaged in things they enjoy.
Which is very different from what is being discussed here. For me, AI is only useful if it is providing a service, not if it is emulating a human being. If AI can stimulate social engagement, that's great, if it is being that social engagement, it's just rubbish.
But I'd rather be having the discussion, than just have it show up out of nowhere like this "experiment" originally did.
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