On: The spread of low-credibility content by social bo...

[asaph]

Not all social media bots are malicious. And not all social media bots are posting content from low credibility sources.

[undreren → asaph]

This is not an argument. Not all drunk drivers kill people either.

A good argument must imply that social media bots are a net benefit to society and democracy, not that some good ones exist.

[eiaoa → asaph]

> Not all social media bots are malicious. And not all social media bots are posting content from low credibility sources.

The collateral damage from banning them all may be worth it, if they're a major means for pushing low credibility content and disinformation.

[robotresearcher → eiaoa]

Eliminating all the internet bots would be the mundane real life first step of the Butlerian Jihad of the Dune universe. In the stories, they eliminate all machine computers in order to prevent AIs destroying society, and go back to human computers.

The idea that AIs (broadly defined to include simple bots) are net more trouble than they are worth has been kicked around in literature forever. It’s fun to live in the age where we get to wrestle with it in practice.