X is becoming a ‘ghost town’ of bots as AI-generated spam content floods the internet — A sign of the scale is the thriving industry in bot-making::The internet is filling up with machine-generated “zombie content” designed to game algorithms and scam humans. Experts call it the “great AI flood”.
So, for that matter, is Reddit. I have an RSS subscription to /r/all (routed through a mirror) and a sizable fraction of posts hitting the front page are word-for-word reposts of old popular content by bots. Even the top comments are recycled. It was always a problem, but the loss of good moderators and the shutdown of projects like BotDefense due to the API fiasco has caused it to absolutely skyrocket.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the AI reposts are intentionally allowed by Reddit to “preserve” content in case users nuke their history. Diabolical business maneuver
I’m sure it’s a happy coincidence for the owners, but I’d hardly call it diabolical. I feel like it’s more likely they just want to preserve the impression of activity and engagement. If the bots were suddenly gone it would be that much more obvious that Reddit is something like a cross between a ruined and abandoned industrial wasteland, and an open pit toilet at the undercooked burrito festival.