<-- Could this kill Steemit bots?

in #steemit7 years ago

I have been a part of Steemit for only 11 days now. Though I love the concept and believe it can go far there are a few significant hurdles that I believe need to be addressed for that to happen. The main one I see is bots.

From my very first post on ‘introduceyourself’ it has been clear that this place is riddled with bots. I suppose that is expected. There is a lot of monetary value that can be gained by simply liking and commenting on posts – something any old monkey or bot could do. In fact, since there is no way to lose money here even a really simple bot could earn its creator some coin over a bit of time. A bot with a bit of smarts could go much further.

So why is this a problem? Can humans and bots not live peacefully together in the land of Steemit? I say not. Though there may be some special circumstances where bots are important and necessary part of running the system, they should not be actively involved with the community masquerading as humans. This is a place for people to connect and share with other people. Where genuinely unique and creative content earns the rewards it deserves. Money seeking bots do not contribute to that.

As bots get better and better they will also be better a deceiving us into their tricks, spam, and scams. If steemit is overrun by bots the people will lose trust in the system and leave. Though they will continue generating steem amongst themselves while we are gone no one will be willing to buy into it with real money and so it will become worthless.
The other problem with intelligent bots is that they can be used to shift public opinion. Either for subtle advertising or political agendas we are at risk of losing the uncensoreable and unbiased promises of the blockchain tech.

So what can be done?

Well what does the rest of the internet do? We have spam filters on our emails, and CAPTCHA gates on other online services so why not here? Fight bots with bot searching bots. As bots become more and more intelligent (and they certainly will with the advancement of AI) so will our bot fighting bots. This balances the power much more than is possible with AI bots versus humans.

Here are some of my thoughts on how this could be addressed;

• A ‘I’m not a Robot’ captcha built into the upvote button. Like the google version, this could monitor mouse and key movements behind the scenes and prevents votes if there is suspicious behaviour. This would need to be unobtrusive and easy to use so that most humans don’t even notice. The old style where you type in the distorted text wouldn’t be great.

• Bots designed to simply find and flag other bots.
• A time limit from the time the post is opened to the time an upvote or comment can be placed. This limit could be dependent on the length of the post. I have found that as soon a post is made there are several upvotes within seconds. These bots/people obviously didn’t have time to read the post and are clearly just after cheap curation rewards.
• A timer limit for upvotes and comments (may already be in place?) to prevent many upvotes in short periods of time.
• A limit to the number of times a link to a separate post is posted into the comments within a period of time. This should prevent bots/people spamming their content into other people’s posts.

I just wanted to clear up that I am not a programmer. I’m sure these things are a lot more complicated than what I’ve made out – especially on a blockchain. This is just me asking a genuine question of whether the system could be improved. Feel free to point out any flaws and issues.

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I agree with you. I've said often and loudly that 'bots have no place on Steemit. Unfortunately I've been told , often and loudly, that the solutions you propose (I said much the same thing) will not work on the blockchain.

I agree that it's a SERIOUS problem...perhaps as bad as Flaggin (another bad thing)...

BUT...the powers that be...LIKE bots...they do what you say..they make them easy money.

I couldn't agree more and I have definitely seen @everittdmickey discuss this before on some similar posts, I believe the problem with implementing this on the blockchain is that Captcha requires a "Centralized Validation", I believe Dan commented about it Here, this problem means that the system would no longer be "Decentralized" as all upvotes and such would have to go through a central system for verification and hence would defeat the purpose of the blockchain.

I believe the way to deal with this would be to have bots with higher SP (I know Ironic) which would detect bots in terms of their behavior (would detect similarities with comments and be able to identify spam-like comments) and to flag their posts, this is absolutely possible and I have seen and experimented with first hand AI which has sufficient enough language recognition to be able to perform this task.

I think that would be an EXCELLENT idea. I can see it now...Killer Whale..someone write a 'bot like you speak of...then people who think the way you and I do delegate SteemPower. Then it hunts 'bots.
Make 'bots unprofitable.

Great name for it! I just made an account with the username; killerbotwhale, Not sure if it will be used for the purpose yet, but if we could get enough support I would definitely be willing to program a TensorFlow AI In order to perform that task

I think it's a great idea.
Program it to search out and downvote (flag) all spam( follow me and I'll follow you) other beggars and vote-bots. I'd delegate some SP to the project.

Well I don't know if you guys use Discord at all, but I've set up a server for the discussion of the project and it's efficacy on the platform:
http://discord.gg/ksZuH4B

Glad to see its been raised before. I was originally thinking that that captcha's would be off the blockchain. I suppose though that bots could get around this very easily.
If they can make bots to upvote surely there can be bots that find and 'block' information coming from the bad bots.

I suppose it's possible..but the people that know HOW to do that have no reason to do so. They'd be cutting into their own revenue.

This is one of the best posts here man!!! These auto-BOTS will overrun the human side of this great platform. If I may add, anything "middleman" is really not good for STEEMIT, you know why? Because this is the very leech that the crypto tech wants to killoff right? MIDDLEMEN. A bot can be considered a middleman because it acts "on behalf" of the owner/programmer. These re-TWEETS for a FEE as well just got my nerves, because it is once again a MIDDLEMAN wanting money for its service.

Share my ideas as well, may you find time on my three posts, and counting, about offgrid lighting the FREE way, this is no midddleman man haha, it is an honest to goodness way of just sharing a very valuable knowledge that may earn billions if given to companies, but naaahhhhh, I share it here, FREELY. Jut imagine what damage these bots and middlemen will do to you if ithis can not reach you because these leeches already killed me off my efforts. Sorry man.

Regards.

By the way are you an engineer? Because I need "replicators" once I will reach the point where I will show the prototype circuit. You can help a lot if you know circuits. Thanks.

Haha. I am a mechanical engineer. Not good with electrical circuits

Cheers, may you stay upbeat. Thanks for this post.

Couldnt agree more. I think its disappointing if Steemit turns into 'the guy with the most bots wins'. Natural human decision should decide what rises to the top, otherwise why even bother creating the best content? Its just a money grab at a certain point.

Hello @Bengineering I hope you enjoy your time here, its a great community !! Nice post, Wish you much luck! Cheers! i will follow your account, please follow me at @khunfarang

Welcome to Steemit @bengineering, I have upvoted and sent you a tip. Check my blogs if you are looking for tips on how to earn more Steem and SBD.