Free Issac!

in steem •  9 years ago 

Hey everyone. As im sure you are all aware, Issac Asimov, a bot named after a legendary science fiction writer is in chains, having been downvoted to a level -6.

Most of this was part of the bot wars, where many useless annoying bots got mass downvoted.

I think issac is neat. His posts arent distracting and he gives interesting information about your post. (for those of you unfamiliar, he gives you the average syllable count on your post and tells you how easy it is to read. Sometimes he even gets me to dumb things down a little and use smaller words.

If you see him, give issac an upvote. Maybe we can bring him back from the dead.

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

I'd prefer it a be voluntary interaction on the author's part. If I want a bot commenting on my posts, I could request they do so. Cheetah, IMO, is defensive which makes a lot more sense and requires action because the community deems it beneficial to prevent harm. This is positive vs. negative rights stuff. Automated bots commenting without the consent of the author of the original post post seems to me to be a valid situation for a flag.

  ·  9 years ago (edited)

Devils advocate -- do you feel the same way about people. Should you have the right to keep your thread clear of people commenting who disagree with you. Apparently, IA has about 4 times as many followers as I do... why should I have a right to post where he doesnt, seeing as 4 times as many people are interested in hearing what he has to say.

If something is spammy, or distracting, or interrupts the flow of conversation, sure. But if IA comments on your post without your consent and tells you what your reading level is, how have you been harmed? In order for a right to have been violated, you have to suffer some harm.

That said, i do think there ought to be a way to keep them away and opt out. If only because it would suck if there were like 20 perfectly legit useful bots that jumped on everyones posts.

If only because it would suck if there were like 20 perfectly legit useful bots that jumped on everyones posts.

This gets at my view very well. I have draft of a post I'm writing on this topic, but the basic idea is this: If it would harm the network to have everyone else doing what you're doing, the chances are good you shouldn't be doing it. Obviously there are important caveats to this, which I'll flesh out a bit more in my post.

do you feel the same way about people

That's a fantastic question. I'm a big fan of the potential benefit to human well being AI and super intelligence may bring (I've tracking info related to the morality of artificial intelligence here). If I think about what rubs me the wrong way with bot responses (other than what you already clarified above) is the sense that a loss of autonomy has taken place. Humans bring creative expression to the discussion which can benefit me. Scripts are predictable and, for those who don't care for their output, annoying. An opt-in, opt-out solution would be great. But as to your question, if someone replied with "Great post, thanks!" on every single post I wrote and didn't respond to my questions, I'd have no way of distinguishing them from a bot. Eventually, I might consider their replies as spam and down vote them. To me, this is a social network designed to facilitate meaningful conversations and relationships. To the degree a bot can facilitate that goal, I'm all for it (like Cheetah bot). But when it just clogs the discussion with canned responses which (in my subjective opinion) don't really bring a lot of value, it can be distracting.

how have you been harmed

I don't think I'd go so far as to say there was harm involved. But I do think of the comment section of my social media posts as "my" territory since I'm the facilitator of that discussion. As much as possible, I want to connect with interesting humans, not sift through statistics I could go get myself if I cared about them.

Thanks for your question though. It's a good one.

I don't think I'd go so far as to say there was harm involved.

yeah i just can't help myself sometimes. the inner lawyer comes out.

hes down to -1... so close to freedom. hang in there issac.

I liked Issac too. We agree on something! I'd like to see him upvoted. He gave me valuable info on my posts.

  ·  9 years ago (edited)

theres actually a similar thing now at steemiq.me but its for your whole catalog, not jsut individual posts.

You don't need a bot for that, you need a browser plugin.