Subject: PSA: This might actually be some kind of AI-driven bot.
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Posted on: 2021-09-16 22:37:10 UTC

(I know, I said I had left. But while lurking to check for replies in my TWWA plug thread I thought it was my turn to be the good samaritan)

The speech pattern of this "guy" has some kind of coherency in its being incoherent - kinda reminds me of those "we fed lots of this tipe of novel to this Ai and then asked it to try writing one" eperiments. In this case, I suspect the Board, and maybe part of the Wiki, were what it was instructed to read. Case it point: it used HQ in the same post as it used the Flowers, but failed to capitalize the latter - an AI bot would of course fail to recognize the difference between our sentient, capital F Flowers and regular flora.

Looking at the posting hours, they seem to be evenly spread throughout the day and the night - while it might be the work of an insomniac or of someone with wild working shifts, it also fits perfectly with a bot instructed to post every few hours to keep the thread going.

I suspect it has been let loose under someone's direct control - it isn't interacting outside of this thread. However, I cannot be sure.

So, these are my theories:

-AI chatbot that has been let loose by someone (a cheeky Boarder, or someone "external") just for the lulz. That would be what I hope.

-AI chatbot let loose by a troll. We had our fair share of trolls here, there's people who hate our guts with a passion, so I don't think it's too implausible that there is someone who is going "haha they're confused by my bot they're so stupid" out there.

-AI chatbot like those used to build up "reputation" for scam youtube accounts by posting gibberish comments on random videos (Apparently, having lots of non-reported comments makes them less likely to be banned when they start posting the scam ones). Though exactly what such a bot would be attempting to do here is beyond me - on a small, actively moderated board like this one Mr. Gibberish would be zapped on sight if it suddenly started advertising phone hacks or the like. This is the worst case scenario, and the one I'm most afraid of - but, at the same time, it isn't really a dangerous one. As I said, a zap would happen as quickly as that of a regular spambot if it were to show that as its true nature.

My two cents: So far, it isn't harmful. Have fun with it if you want - but if it posts any link, stay away from them.

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