Forum Discussion

Cardiffman282's avatar
Cardiffman282
Trouble shooter
6 months ago

AI-generated posts

 My posts are always immaculately handcrafted. However I have noticed a distinct upswing in posts and replies on here that are clearly generated by the various AI platforms like ChatGPT. 

These used to be swiftly deleted but a more relaxed approach seems to be being taken now. 

So... what is the etiquette here? The rules are silent on it. Should I flag them to the Mods or just shrug my shoulders and accept the unstoppable rise of AI gibberish? What if they are spam vehicles to drive traffic to a link at the bottom? 

I'm sure VM Ltd will hand over this platform to the AI bots at some point but what to do in the mean time?

 

  • goslow's avatar
    goslow
    Alessandro Volta

    I have read/heard some recent estimates suggesting that artifical general intelligence is but 3 or 4 years away.

    All the main tech players are beginning to install AI components onto individual devices and the aim of these will be to get to understand the individual user and know them well, which will doubtless be a rapid process since the AI will be monitoring everything the indiviudal person does on their device.

    Some of the outcomes of AI will be good and some will be bad. One of the biggest difficulties will be that the political and legislative processes, which might possibly regulate against the worst aspects of the technology, are going to be hopelessly slow and will only be responding reactively to the technology once things have already happened.

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta

    Most people don't realise that the progress of AI so far has been relatively easy, but for AI to become truly transformational, i.e. affecting the ways we work (or not being able to get a job) and live, will be a lot harder. The limitation is electricity and water, both of which are needed in astounding quantities for the data centres that are needed for AI's insatiable consumption of power. It just isn't feasible for data centres to keep drawing power from a grid, so in all probability nuclear power stations like small modular reactors (SMRs) will have to be built just to power the data centres. A problem is that SMRs probably won't start to come online for 10 years, but they will. So in the meantime we won't see a big surge in AI.

    Now you might ask about the government's recent announcement about AI. This cannot happen unless there is also a nuclear power station built for AI - not an easy project.

  • As a sort of last hurrah to the current community forum design model we have this spectacular AI bot fail today in response to a simple ebilling complaint: 

    • goslow's avatar
      goslow
      Alessandro Volta

      You beat me to it Cardiffman282! I think the new forum design is an improvement compared to the previous version but it seems to have no greater resistance against the march of the bots!

  • Bot posts 2.0? 

    This is an interesting bot post. It's different to the usual namexxxname username format for the username, doesn't have a full sign off name at the bottom, doesn't say "Hello" at the top, almost gets away with it with relevant advice but then blows it in the last line. 

     

    • goslow's avatar
      goslow
      Alessandro Volta

      Same account posting below with the same irrelevant line at the end

      https://community.virginmedia.com/discussions/Setup/availability/5581627/replies/5611407

      I wonder if it is maybe trying to insert a spam link at the end but the new forum software means a working hyperlink is failing to appear.

  • It doesn't look like a Bot to me; It's just someone who has posed a question to an AI and copied and pasted the reply.

    Bots are little programs that go around pasting vulgar or silly remarks or Hyperlinks. 

    YouTube uses them if members don't agree with their right to censor replies to members' videos. 

  • Client62's avatar
    Client62
    Alessandro Volta

    Time will tell if AI turnout to be a silver bullet or yet another hyped technology that sells more virtual machine hours and training courses than it delivers life enhancing progress.

    Look at the last fad, crypto currency & block chain, the majority of the world is unaffected by either, both turned out to be far less efficient or a lot less usable than originally advertised.

    Good news "Edit" is back.