AIBU to think some trending threads might be AI generated?

[Taytoface]

Just looking at trending now. I am thinking at least three of the threads are potentially AI generated.

All of them are mumsnetty type topics, involving housing, education, parenting. All of them have lots of quite intricate details. High engagement from the OP with other posters. Can't figure.out the advanced search function too well, but seems like user names are relatively new.

Any other tips to spot the slop? It's one thing to waste time with a troll, it's a whole other kettle of fish wasting time on robot generated slop.

😂😂😂 I didn't phrase it accurately enough in my first comment, that's fair to say 😃 But without outing my identity, I really do know my stuff in this area, and have written/published about it extensively 🙂

Most users will have taken time and care before posting on here to avoid accusations of drip feeding, writing coherent sentences and structured paragraphs is not an alarm bell. Many MNers are educated.

Like your username - Warren Zevon would be proud. 🐺

100% - I think the site is becoming a bit of a parody of itself and the owner/s are trying to offload it. It needs to have high traffic to be appealing to potential investors so engineered threads are highly likely - its a long, long way off its heydey when it was considered a serious political think tank.

And yet you aren't Scottish or Irish so have no real experience in the matter.

You didn't misphrase. You explicitly claimed the use of the word "gotten" isn't typical of British English. (Summary of your actual post).

Sure he would appreciate the Scottish twist 😉

I might be one of those. I wasn't accurate enough. Anyway, I'm leaving this now - I've suddenly gotten busy with other stuff 😂

How do you define a slow day, though? There are thousands and thousands of existing threads for people to read and engage in; I don't think they'll be left high and dry if a few minutes go by without a brand new one being started.

It's a bit like with television: when those of us over a certain age were growing up, there frequently was indeed "nothing (of interest) on the telly"; but now that there are thousands of lifetimes' worth of all manner of content available online at the click of a few buttons, anybody claiming the same nowadays is really just saying that they don't want to watch TV.

Not every person who's is "UK poster" talking about a "UK situation" grew up with "British English" as their language. Even those that did, modify and adapt, picking up stylistic things such as 'gotten'.

So what do you think will happen nationally?

🤣 You're safe, the Strawberry Moon is still a couple of weeks away. Ah-Hooooo!

Ah remember the good old days when users were desperate to be the one to spot the troll poster and rather than engaging with anything some people seemed more interested in reporting anything and everything that they suspected as being by a troll. Apparently there were all sorts of 'clues' like having a one word user name with numbers after it (something that I actually had at the time). But it was a very popular way for people to feel clever and superior.

Now that's not cool anymore it seems and it's moved onto AI and everyone thinks they can spot the 'AI generated' posts - whatever that actually means. I don't think anyone even cares what it means as long as they can say 'Oh I've spotted at least 3 AI posts in trending. They must be AI because although they're on perfectly mundane topics the OP engages and gives lots of details and it's really well written' - like WTAF? How on earth does that prove anything?

I have seen people called out for obviously using AI to organise their post and they've admitted they ran it through ChatGPT before posting, which is fair enough if the post is written in that very particular layout - but deciding half the board is AI for spurious reasons is as tedious as the troll hunters were.

If you think it's AI then don't engage, personally I couldn't care less. The soaps aren't real either incase you hadn't noticed but plenty of people engage with them.

I think you're being paranoid. Honestly who would bother?

It's very sad that we've come to a point whereby people who have competent language skills and/or take the time to check what they've written before posting are thus suspected of being 'too good to be human'. It doesn't say a lot about us as a species, does it?

Don't forget that not everybody posts using a phone - I read on my phone, but 95% or more of what I post is done on my laptop... and we now also have the edit function, for when you read back after posting and spot the typos that have crept in.

You may indeed know a lot of stuff, but it does make you look a bit foolish if you then extrapolate that confidence to include other stuff about which you clearly aren't all that knowledgeable - and to actually make proclamations based on that assumption.

Fair enough 🙂

Stupid gifs everywhere, use your words

Didn't he copy that from something much older?

I used several, can you not read??

Having a go at my gifs, GET OVER IT

I use “gotten”. I’m Scottish!
I know the thread you mean. I’ve been reading it this morning; unless there’s more than one gotten user at large at the moment.

In the one I saw, though, the OP also makes a few grammatical mistakes (e.g. using “myself” instead of me) which would make me think the poster was human.

Unless, of course, throwing in the odd SPAG error is part of AI now, to throw us off the scent!

3'words in shouty capitals, a fine contribution to the discussion indeed

Not sure.

What other indicators of regionality are you looking for?

About AI slop? Hardly a highbrow topic, your majesty 🤷‍♀️

Other words, turns of phrase. Anyway, I've "gotten" busy, so I have to leave this now.