We need better solutions for proving identity online. Email, capcha, etc. are insufficient. I imagine a system similar to the certificate authority system, where you prove your identity to one of many trusted identity providers and then that provider vouches for you when you sign up for other services (while also protecting you anonymity.)
this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
252 points (100.0% liked)
Reddit Migration
37 readers
2 users here now
### About Community Tracking and helping #redditmigration to Kbin and the Fediverse. Say hello to the decentralized and open future. To see latest reeddit blackout info, see here: https://reddark.untone.uk/
founded 1 year ago
the protecting your anonymity part would be very hard though, such a system has a high risk of eventually enabling a dystopian future where your every online move is being monitored by big brother
I was thinking that a mandatory donation to a charity could work. Like a simple $5 donation per account to any of a (carefully curated) list of charities. It would dramatically throttle new account creation / app adoption, of course, which is bad, but if a potential user wants it bad enough then they'd be OK with donating $5 to their favorite charity. It would reduce the number of bots / trolls / Sybils and it could work in a decentralized manner (imaging a lemmy instance doing this)
There will always be a trade-off between anonymity and authenticity. I could see a future where some web services will only interact with users that present a verified certificate that establishes them as a real person, even if it's not necessarily tied to your real-world identity. Some could require a cert that is tied to your actual identity. Some others could allow general anonymous accounts, though they would struggle with spam and AI bots. But ultimately, I think people are going to come to value some amount of guarantee that they're interacting with actual people.
In a seedy back alley bar, an identity broker checks his bank accounts as a man enters the front door. In his pocket, the man entering the bar carries a uSD card. He sits down across from the broker and sets the card on the vinyl table-top.
“PGP or minisign,” asks the broker, without looking up from his data pad.
“PGP,” responds the man, looking over his shoulder, back at the door, nervously.
The broker looks up, assesses the man, and says, “These older protocols cost extra, you know, you don't look like you have the credits.”
“Look, I just need to prove I'm human by the end of tonight, or else The Outlaws are going to put a tire iron between my eyes for not being able to get them the goods they've asked for.”
“The problem,” the broker said, before taking a long pull from his tobacco nebulizer, “Is that the AI bots are getting harder and harder to tell from the humans in this city. Technology has come a long way since Greenville became a coastal town"
The man looks back at the broker, realization dawning on him about what's about to happen. The gun which usually lived its days taped under the booth was now pointed at the man. “Typically, I wouldn't do this, but I don't like The Outlaws. I'm not going to lose business over that, though. But I work for The Bastards mostly. I know you don't work for them directly. You got mixed up in all this, didn't you? Nevertheless. In this one case, the cruelty is the point.”
Most of the inhabitants of the bar jumped as the pistol cracked, but made a point not to look over at the booth in the corner.
“Hmm… Yes… Blood. I should have your identity confirmed within the hour. I would wish you luck on your purchase, but frankly I wouldn't mind if you failed,” says the broker, sliding the uSD card into a slot just to the side of his right eye
This isn't going to happen in the future.
Bots are already engaging with users and pushing narratives. The percentage of Reddit that is inorganic is probably higher than most people would expect.
Never underestimate the power of negative energy, plenty of people flock to also dump on things they don't like, it's a great way to drive engagement (albeit shitty engagement)
Have you never been to /r/SubSim2Interactive?
Although you have to wonder how much advertisers would actually pony up if most of the Reddit users weren't actual users at all. They want people to do the clicking, and if the users are all bots, they're likely not going to bother wasting their money at that point.
r/subredditsimulator takes over reddit.
I'm interested to see how AI training on reddit turns out. Especially the default subs are full of snarky jokes, even on serious topics the majority of comments are "funny" one liners. And those are the ones getting the most upvotes.
Compared to a system like StackOverflow where the upvoted answers are the most helpful and mostly well written and thoughtfully crafted.
I always wonder if Bing AI gets its often argumentative tone from the reddit comments in its training data lol
Reddit stole this idea from /r/subredditsimulator and /r/subredditsimulatorgpt2...
Content will be used to train bots, yes, but it probably won't be Reddit doing it, and they likely won't be offering bots as a service.
Instead, they'll sell access to the API to people training LLMs, and sell it again to people who want to use bots on the site. They can split API access into bulk read, and read/write packages so that people can't double-dip. Then they'll let people monetize subreddits, directly incentivising bot access and usage.
They're already doing that, it's why reddit went down the drain, not suddenly but progressively over the last years.
It can only get worse, I'm so happy the protest made aware of alternatives so I can be here instead.
Maybe I guess
But that doesn't seem will be too popular with advertisers considering it can go the other way too