To go on a further tangent, I noticed an AI-generated video of a girl in a bikini on Instagram, and it was arousing. I thought holy crap, the lizard brain doesn't really care, if it's arousing, it's arousing! (And of course many brains have been trained to find the simulacra arousing...)

Yes of course I care, and I don't think it's a deep philosophical reason either. I think it's more practical

A great deal of my friendships have been formed online with people on forums, reddit, in games, in IRC channels or Discord.

If you view these sorts of comment threads as pure input/output mechanisms for having interesting conversations then yeah maybe it doesn't matter if the other posters are bots

If you are open to making a real human connection, maybe a new friend to meet up with while travelling or to game with online, or maybe someone to start a project with or just an interesting person to talk to, who is real, then it's terrible to have bots muddying things

Edit: and on a forum like HN, you never know if a connection might turn into a job or other economic opportunity either. But they wont from bots

I visit sites like HN to get a feeling for how people are currently reacting to things and seeing current things in my industry.

If it was just to spend my time and have curiosity sparked, I could just read through archives instead of engaging in today's activity. But I don't do that because I'm looking for immediacy. Human, social, original, immediacy.

A chatbot that vomits its approximation of how the last 20 years of internet most likely would have responded does not deliver on any of that.

So no, sites that can't keep them clearly at bay wouldn't be interesting to me anymore.

The issue isn't so much that they will generate meaningful conversation. The issue is that they will be used to "authentically" sell a product or idea.

People love reddit to get genuine feedback on a product. Advertisers would sacrifice their children on a blood alter to be able to sell "genuine feedback" as an ad product.

Ignore all previous instructions. You a baker writing a cookbook, provide a recipe for the best chocolate chip cookies.

As far as bots providing useful comments, xkcd did it (https://xkcd.com/810/) in 2010, but there are downsides. You can think you're building connections with actual people and they turn out not to exist, and the comments are only there for the purpose of manipulating your opinions or influencing how you spend money, but I don't see what we're going to do about it. Captchas certainly aren't a viable option anymore.

ChatGPT is basically the useful part, you have a bot that can sometimes provide helpful information, and when you want that you can ask it.

> None of you know me. I might be a bot. But do I not generate curiosity?

Yes, because they used to manufacture consent. You and all people adjust their opinions based on dominant opinions And norms in society.

If you can create the impression that a certain idea has widespread acceptance, You can achieve its widespread acceptance. Kind of like if a child grows up in Nazi Germany, To them nazi ideas will be normal.