SantaBarbara bot
Discussion
I was reading one of the other forums earlier and my interest was piqued by some posters discussing the user SantaBarbara, who appears to have been banned. There was some suggestion that this poster was actually a spambot.
I wen back through a few threads with posts from this user and noticed that the posts were mostly inane drivel and always a reaction to other posts, never appearing to volunteer any original thought.
Was this user a spambot, and if it was, how did it work? Was a rudimentary AI posting sentences to PH by using a rudimentary algorithm to 'read' other posts and send replies?
I wen back through a few threads with posts from this user and noticed that the posts were mostly inane drivel and always a reaction to other posts, never appearing to volunteer any original thought.
Was this user a spambot, and if it was, how did it work? Was a rudimentary AI posting sentences to PH by using a rudimentary algorithm to 'read' other posts and send replies?
There was another thread on this subject I only became aware of after it was deleted.
I had similar thoughts of it being an AI experiment or bot.
If so, it did seem to evolve, initially never seeming to post more than once per thread, and never responding to replies directed directly at them. To slightly more coherent initial responses, and engaging in dialogue with posters who have replied.
Was it "learning"?
So for me, I could well believe it was a bot, and if entirely automated shows an interesting glimpse of what could be / is possible. (Whether that's good or bad is open to discussion.)
I had similar thoughts of it being an AI experiment or bot.
If so, it did seem to evolve, initially never seeming to post more than once per thread, and never responding to replies directed directly at them. To slightly more coherent initial responses, and engaging in dialogue with posters who have replied.
Was it "learning"?
So for me, I could well believe it was a bot, and if entirely automated shows an interesting glimpse of what could be / is possible. (Whether that's good or bad is open to discussion.)
I'm glad it's not just me that has been wondering this 
I don't know if there is any way of the PH admin pulling some post count analytics from the database but I seem to recall that when I first spotted odd posts by SB a couple of months ago the user had only a few hundred posts in many months of membership. In the last couple of months his/her/it's post count has exploded!
Al
I don't know if there is any way of the PH admin pulling some post count analytics from the database but I seem to recall that when I first spotted odd posts by SB a couple of months ago the user had only a few hundred posts in many months of membership. In the last couple of months his/her/it's post count has exploded!
Al
Chester draws said:
There was another thread on this subject I only became aware of after it was deleted.
I had similar thoughts of it being an AI experiment or bot.
If so, it did seem to evolve, initially never seeming to post more than once per thread, and never responding to replies directed directly at them. To slightly more coherent initial responses, and engaging in dialogue with posters who have replied.
Was it "learning"?
So for me, I could well believe it was a bot, and if entirely automated shows an interesting glimpse of what could be / is possible. (Whether that's good or bad is open to discussion.)
All questions seem to hone in on one tenuous point and ask for clarification to the nth degree, never to return.I had similar thoughts of it being an AI experiment or bot.
If so, it did seem to evolve, initially never seeming to post more than once per thread, and never responding to replies directed directly at them. To slightly more coherent initial responses, and engaging in dialogue with posters who have replied.
Was it "learning"?
So for me, I could well believe it was a bot, and if entirely automated shows an interesting glimpse of what could be / is possible. (Whether that's good or bad is open to discussion.)
Very strange
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