Over at Alex on Film I recently had two comments that appeared on my review of Escape Room that I suspected were not written by an actual human being:
Spot-on analysis. The room designs looked interesting on the surface, but the puzzle solutions felt far-fetched and the alternate/cliffhanger endings were definitely disappointing. It’s a shame it didn’t push the boundaries of the genre further.
Great analysis. I completely agree that Escape Room relies heavily on familiar ‘Game of Death’ tropes seen in films like Cube and Saw. While the premise is intriguing, the contrived character conflicts and weak, open-ended conclusion definitely hold it back from standing out in the genre.
The tip-off, of course, is that both these comments were posted together at the same time. Plus the fact that the email attached was just a random collection of letters at a gmail address. Also, the website they linked to was a professional football betting site.
Still, the reason I bring this up is that either one of these comments I would have allowed through and probably even responded to on its own. They are well expressed and do respond directly to the points I was making in my review, even using some of my own language (like calling this the “Game of Death” genre). Gone are the days of trash spam like “Best free pharmaceuticals!” and “Free pr0n!” This is good stuff. I assume it’s being produced by AI. AI that has actually “read” my reviews!
Still, it is spam. And as spam gets better, both in how its written and how its targeted, I feel like it’s going to get harder and harder to identify. This will lead to a “death of the Internet” situation where nobody will even know that the zombie apocalypse has happened until it’s already run its course.
Alex Good 
Don’t you worry, Botstooge and I will both be here to leave real comments. Curated thoughts with deep analytical forays into the zeitgeist of our times. However, I probably won’t agree with you on very much. Like your use of the word “the”. Wildly inappropriate and I’m going to be reporting you to the Canadian Mounties.
LikeLike
The Canadian Mounties aren’t as bad as the ones from Kazakhstan at least. Those guys play rough.
There are honestly times where I’ve looked at even frequent commenters and wondered “is this a real person?” Where does Bookstooge end and Botstooge take over? I mean, AI should be able to clone a person’s voice pretty easily, scraping everything you’ve ever posted online.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Kazakhian Mounties? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of them. Are they one of those super secret I’ll have to kill you if I tell you about them kind of things?
I recently saw some ads for chatgpt where an old lady was carrying on a conversation with it and the whole point was that you were supposed to treat it like a person while talking. I have NO idea why people would do that. It was downright scary.
LikeLike
I guess for old people it’s something to fight loneliness? There was some interview with Sam Altman (I think) this week where he was saying one of the great things AI was going to be able to do was talk to your kids for you, asking them about school and sports and such. Because nobody wants to have to talk to their kids.
LikeLiked by 1 person
the kids answers will still be ‘fine’.
LikeLiked by 1 person
😄
LikeLiked by 2 people
hahahahaha! I’m laughing at just how true that is 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well now you’re getting into it. How can you stop this without leaving the field free for China? This is me thinking about genetic engineering. I say we should stop it (or regulate the hell out of it so it doesn’t get out of control). But then we get overwhelmed at some future date by Chinese superheroes.
LikeLike
China and AI is going to be a big story for sure. I’ve been listening to it a bit because of all the coverage in the business press. They may pop the global AI bubble, and when the news came out that they’re printing their own advanced chips now I thought that was really going to be a shock to the system. The superheroes won’t be too far behind, as I’m sure genetic engineering is going on.
LikeLike
So what America needs to do is get its priorities straight and then take over the world. We won’t WANT to do it, but we’ll OWE it to you. : -)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ai-yi-yi.
LikeLike
So AI can now write the blog posts and do the comments, and probably reply to them. No need for us lot really.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Might as well take the rest of the day off! 😴
LikeLiked by 2 people
It does look like AI has everything “under control.” We are entering a new (and improved!) spam era. It is bizarre to think of AI web sites leaving comments on other AI web sites.
LikeLike
If it just leads to more clicks and traffic then we’ll all just be watching the AIs do their thing.
LikeLiked by 1 person