Bots really are ruining the internet, and are one of the driving factors in a lot of the identity verification and age gating. Both pressures are going to combine to destroy what we once had with the internet.
varispeed•1h ago
> in a lot of the identity verification and age gating
This won't change anything. Likely will just open a market for trading verified accounts and spam will continue.
ranger_danger•1h ago
I think that could get shot down real quick though.
Accounts/identities that are known to have been shared could be flagged as stolen and now anyone who tries to use it gets burned.
Then the question is, what happens to the poor guy whose identity was stolen? As it is I already can't view half the sites on the internet due to endless captcha loops.
bonesss•1h ago
I get less concerned about LLMs taking or jobs by the day, and more convinced they’ve already taken away our internet.
There was a time of BBS and text based systems where only genuine humans could participate, and a lusty lady on mIRC was at worst some dude pretending. Now I’m half a page into HN posts and realizing I have yet again been duped into losing some life to some jagoffs lying bot and work is just as bad.
The constant drip-drip of what’s-the-point makes the whole thing seem performative and hostile.
mingus88•1h ago
I think the answer is to retreat to networks where there is no profit motive
The internet was a utopia back when corporations weren’t even aware that they could register a domain name
Social media and consolidation of all traffic into a few platforms has led us to the dystopia of today.
uyzstvqs•14m ago
It's nothing new though. Forum spam has been around since the early internet. The only difference is that spammers use LLMs now, instead of $0.08 worth of "freelance writing".
everdrive•2h ago
varispeed•1h ago
This won't change anything. Likely will just open a market for trading verified accounts and spam will continue.
ranger_danger•1h ago
Accounts/identities that are known to have been shared could be flagged as stolen and now anyone who tries to use it gets burned.
Then the question is, what happens to the poor guy whose identity was stolen? As it is I already can't view half the sites on the internet due to endless captcha loops.
bonesss•1h ago
There was a time of BBS and text based systems where only genuine humans could participate, and a lusty lady on mIRC was at worst some dude pretending. Now I’m half a page into HN posts and realizing I have yet again been duped into losing some life to some jagoffs lying bot and work is just as bad.
The constant drip-drip of what’s-the-point makes the whole thing seem performative and hostile.
mingus88•1h ago
The internet was a utopia back when corporations weren’t even aware that they could register a domain name
Social media and consolidation of all traffic into a few platforms has led us to the dystopia of today.
uyzstvqs•14m ago