While browsing the fediverse I come across more and more accounts that seem … a bit off, a little uncanny. The stuff they post seems random, their comments slightly weird. What’s going on, is the fediverse being overrun by bots? Or am I as a fanatic anti-AI person just losing my mind and seeing the enemy everywhere?
I hate the fact that I now question every interaction that seems a bit off - it seems such a stupid waste of my time and I’m afraid I might just end up blocking real people who happen to express themselves in a strange way - as a neurodivergent person I know how bad I would feel about being ostracized as ‘too strange to be real’. How would you handle this?
I know, that’s why it really bugs me. Makes me want to go offline to not have to deal with this problem at all.
I mean, that’s a legitimate option.
Honestly, it’s not Lemmy, it’s the whole Internet being overrun by bots. There is no safe haven and I haven’t heard a single feasible solution to the problem. But, at least in my experience, staying off the Internet works great. When I’m talking to someone face to face I practically never worry that they might be a bot.
Also, having offline conversations tends to make me happier. So there’s another benefit. I know it sounds cliche or like I’m joking, but I’m really not.
Not taking it as a joke - I feel the same about it. I guess every screen does fuck with the mind at some point, be it an algorithm making me feel in a prescribed way, the obsession to find the fake people in an online discussion, or just turning into a zombie watching TV - all is stuff that makes me sad or angry when I overdo it, so I’m careful to get outside enough and meet actual humans (and non-humans) and the sadness goes away. It can be difficult when living alone and working a screen job, but my self preservation instincts are improving with time!
The internet is devouring itself - I hope some of the useful parts remain, but I wouldn’t be too sad to return to my local library for information and slow down the flow of information again.
I just check their profile first - you’ll get a better idea of whether human or bot 👍.
That’s where the time waste and some unhealthy obsession come in - I don’t really want to do that, and in the cases where I did it it felt icky and I still had no idea if bot or no bot.