Are you interacting with other citizens on Social Media, or just paid trolls? Or worse yet, are you responding to AI postings? The future of Social Media is here! No, she isn't real.
I noted before that a lot of postings online these days seem to be comment-bait. "What's the worse thing you've seen as a server?" or "What is your favorite Explosion Movie?" or that sort of thing. They appear regularly on Reddit, and I assume Twitter and Facebook, et al. They are comment-bait, as they get you motivated to chip-in with your two-cents and thus provide engagement for the website in question (and that is all Social Media is, a website). This, in turn, ups their clout with advertisers, who not only want you to see their ads, but also see them for a specific amount of time. What better way to capture eyeballs than to have you laboriously type in a response for several minutes, while a flashy banner ad plays to your eyeballs?
Lately, I have noticed a marked increase in comment-bait. Maybe it was because Reddit moderators "went on strike" which pushed more comment-bait to the top of the Reddit cesspool. But I think AI is also involved, and I think Social Media sites are clandestinely creating content such as comment-bait by hiring people to come up with these asinine scenarios about weddings-gone-wrong or "Am I the Asshole for throwing out my drug-addicted relative who stole my car?" kind of thing. And the more I think about it, this is the sort of thing prime for AI. Just go on ChatGPT and say, "ChatGPT, create a Reddit post for me about a crazy scenario with greedy relatives that fits the format of r/choosingbeggars" - and watch the fun begin.
You could even program a bot to create these postings every hour on the hour, for different subreddits. If they are not doing this, they are idiots. Why wait for content to organically appear when you can manufacture it?
And even if Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit are not already doing this, I am sure there are individuals or organizations who are. If you can program AI to generate "content" that results in engagement, your AI bot can become an "influencer" and earn a lot of money. The AI influencer - coming soon to Social Media near you! Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.
Oh, wait, they're already here!
Of course, those are the open AI influencers - who don't pretend to be human at all. I suspect there are dozens, if not hundreds, nay thousands, of such AI bots already flooding the web.
And rage-bait is one way they ensnare viewers. People will get so enraged over a posting or video (often for different reasons) that they will ignore obvious tell-tale signs the posting is all faked-up. Say, for example, you put up a posting, "My husband left me over a video game!" That would generate rage-bait as some folks would click on it to commiserate about "no-good husbands" and "those damn video games!" Others will click on it to defend the video game industry - "Studies funded by the video game industry show that not only are games not harmful, they actually make you a better, more well-rounded person!" That sort of thing.
Pretty soon, you've (or your AI has) rage-baited people into posting thousands of comments in response to a made-up posting created by AI. Your ad rates go through the roof. Profit and repeat.
The problem, of course, is that it rapidly becomes too much of a good thing. Tick-Tock is pretty much 100% rage-bait today. People put up short videos of them being bad people and everyone rushes to comment about how bad they are. Nothing ever good came of social media - no lives were saved, no cures for cancer found. On the other hand, every mass-shooter has a manifesto posted on social media and was egged-on by bored middle-school students on 8chan.
Or maybe AI bots. Because that is the next logical step - and I am sure it is already happening - is to have the other "users" making "comments" be AI bots as well. You can up your "engagement" numbers with fake bot accounts.
Up to a point, of course. Advertisers are already questioning the value of much of their online advertising budgets. Big-money buys in traditional media are already under scrutiny. Does spending millions of dollars on a 30-second Superbowl ad really result in more sales? Or are you just setting fire to a pile of money? Hard to say, and even harder to quantify - as ratings services are often inaccurate and self-reported survey data is always suspect. That's why they want to track us with our phones - to see if we do indeed buy a Coke after seeing and ad for it.
In addition to advertisers fleeing AI content, there is the issue of users as well. Whenever I see one of these "stories" on social media, my first reaction is, "Could this be a made-up story?" Sadly, unless the story is so over-the-top as to be incredible, not many people come to that conclusion. Well, that, or all the people responding are also AI bots.
But eventually, I think people will tire of this nonsense. When rage-bait becomes 100% of online content, people will become rage-fatigued. I mentioned before how in Ithaca, New York, they like to put bumper stickers on the back of their Subarus, saying "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!" I submit the opposite is true: If you are constantly outraged over everything, chances are, you are being baited and as a result, your outrage is ineffective at changing anything at all.
Of course, the weird thing is, AI "influencers" are already here, and apparently, thousands of people already "follow" them (perhaps for novelty's sake) - presuming of course, the followers are not bots themselves.
Hmm.... just thinking out loud here. Suppose there was a way to turn AI bots into real consumers - so that they spent the money they make from online advertising on real consumer goods and services? It would be the perfect storm and eliminate messy humans from the commerce equation. Bots could promote products and services that other bots would then buy. No humans necessary!
We may be closer to this than we think.
But overall, I think it will backfire, eventually. People will get tired of fake outrage on Social Media and turn away from it, perhaps. Or perhaps not. Human beings have a marked propensity to engaging in addictive behavior which not only is bad for their physical and mental health, oftentimes ends up killing them.
So, all hail our new AI masters! AI influencers, we love you!
