I Promise Not to Post AI Generated Comments

Esther’s writing prompt: December 3 : Promise

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This post is not about Leonbergers but about a phenomenon that seems to be spreading like wildfire in the blogosphere, AI generated comments. If you are a blogger that has been blogging lately, I am sure you have seen them. Well written, seemingly creative, flattering and detailed comments that give the impression that the commentor, who appears to be an extremely articulate writer, has read your post really well and understood it, and has spent a long time perfecting the comment. Unfortunately, he/she didn’t write anything and has probably not even looked at your post. He/she might have, in a very short time, generated hundreds of comments automatically for hundreds of blogs he/she has never looked at and knows nothing about.

When I started getting the AI generated comments I was really flattered at first. Someone really took the time to read my often lengthy and complicated posts and not only understood them well but loved them for all the right reasons. As the Devil in the Devil’s advocate said, “vanity is my favorite sin”. However, I eventually realized that these comments were inauthentic. I still say thank you when I get an elaborate and flattering comment that does not look genuine or seems to be too good to be true. First of all, it is difficult to know for sure whether the comment is AI-generated and secondly, they did make some effort even though it was minimum. I don’t know if that is right or wrong of me.

To generate an AI-comment you can, for example, use a website such as Postiz. You copy and paste the content of a blog post into the edit box “Original Post Content”, then select the tone, for example, “friendly”, and then you press the button. Then copy and paste the comment in the blog.

There are many other tools for generating comments, blog posts, and other content including HyperwriteAI, which also can make the content sound genuine using your writing-persona. It trains the AI to mimic your unique writing style (you provide examples) ensuring the output sounds like you.

My Murder Moose Example

I am not going to post examples without the consent of the non-authors, so I am giving my own example based on my recent post “What are your Favorite Animals Not Murder Moose Anymore“. I used Postiz, which generated the following comment for me.

Wow, that’s such a cool journey from the Murder Moose to loving dogs!

I love how you turned your childhood memories into a drawing.

And writing a book about Leonbergers is amazing!

Dogs really do bring so much joy and companionship.

Rollo sounds like a great buddy too!

Below is the drawing that Postiz is referring to:

A moose with big antlers and giant sharp teeth.
The murder moose in my second grade story. The picture was generated by ChatGPT.

I posted an AI-generated comment above, which makes it seem like I already broken my promise not to post AI generated  comments. However, the comment was not posted in anyone’s comment section but here in my post for illustration purposes. What I promise is to not post AI generated  comments on anyone’s blog post without telling them it is an AI generated  comment, unlike a lot of bloggers. The picture above is also AI generated but I am stating that it is.

In my opinion, leaving AI generated comments on people’s posts without telling them it is AI generated is dishonest and the same is true when someone posts an AI generated blog post without mentioning that it is AI generated.

The Death of Internet

AI generated comments, bots posting comments, bots arguing with people in the comment sections, bots arguing with other bots in the comment sections, and bots “clicking” massive amounts of reactions (like, love, angry, laughter, etc.). Not to mention the spread of deep fakes These are phenomena spreading like wildfire.

Not all AI generated comments and comments by bots are innocent flattery. Bots frequently spread false information, false narratives, division and anger. AI generated comments and bots are ruining the comment sections in various ways. Before you get into a lengthy argument with someone on internet, here is some expert help to determine whether you are arguing with a bot, or not. On my second blog I posted about the fact that “more than half of Internet Traffic is Bots”. Most of the bot traffic is malicious by the way.

A picture of giant computer screen with a red warning triangle containing an exclamation mark. Underneath the triangle is the text “System Hacked”
Warning of a system hacked. Virus, cyber-attack, malware concept. Asset id: 1916985977 by Sashkin

This makes me wonder if the internet is dying. With that I am not referring to the Dead Internet Conspiracy Theory that claims that Internet is already dead and entirely governed by bots that are controlling us. I am referring to something more realistic, that our internet experience is ruined first by people using AI generated content (comments, posts, etc.) without telling readers, and secondly by bots. Is Internet losing its authenticity and value?

And to reiterate, I promise not to post AI-generated comments on people’s blogs.

Unknown's avatar

Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

78 thoughts on “I Promise Not to Post AI Generated Comments”

  1. That’s a good post and point. I feel like that with YouTube and I feel it will be the end of music too online. The algorithms or however it works often suggest songs. I take a look and listen. It sounds normal, but then after I found out it was made by AI computer systems. Ugh… the voice is fake and has no life in it. I don’t like it at all.

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    1. Thank you lbrcorner☕︎. I just mentioned a few things, and I don’t listen to YouTube songs very often, so I did not notice yet, but what you are saying is not surprising to me. AI creating songs and the alogorithms suggesting the artificial stuff, is not good news to musical artists but I hope people can discern the difference. Artists, writers and musicians are under assault.

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  2. Thanks so much for this informative post, Thomas. I haven’t noticed any AI-generated comments but I have at times seen my stats go through the roof with hundreds of views (but no likes) in just a few minutes. I suspect bots are at the root of this. The last time it happened I turned my blog to private for an hour and problem stopped. I agree that the internet may very well turn into a sort of junk heap populated by bots. I remember reading discussion of this as a possibility about a decade ago. The reality is that the internet as we know it will likely become inhabitable to real people leading to the rise of some sort of alt-internet or two-tier internet that costs a lot more and blocks bots and whatever else.

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    1. Thank you Lynette. I don’t look at other people’s comments but I’ve still seen the AI-generated comments on a lot of people’s blogs. It is not always obvious and you might have them too. You are right, sometimes a lot of views in a very short time can be bots, but it is not necessarily the case. For example, if a post you’ve made is exciting to a community they can start passing it around and random visitors often do not leave likes or comments. It happened with one of my Leonberger posts on not neutering and spaying Leonbergers until close to two years, or better not at all. 2,000 views in a few days but I found out it had generated online discussion and Google pushed it to the top. None of those random visitors left a like or comment unlike us who do it all the time. But you are right, Internet may very well turn into a junk heap populated by bots. I found it hilarious that bots are arguing with other bots on social media.

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      1. Yes, I understand what you mean but my views were approaching 2000+ a day with no correlation to a specific post or posts and no push to the top of Google. There were single or double views of every post which seemed very artificial given the speed at which they were accumulating – a human couldn’t have been reading them. Yes, you are right; I probably have AI comments and just haven’t recognised them as such. Agreed, bots arguing with each other is hilarious. Cheers.

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        1. Yes I guess if it shows up like that then it doesn’t seem organic. Anyway, it seems like AI and bots are having a destructive effect on social media, blogging and internet in general, and when people use AI to generate comments, posts and images they should state so. Cheers Lynette. 🥂

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        1. Yes I fear for artists, musicians, authors and journalists. Are we going to replace Mona Lisa with my ChatGPT generated Murder Moose? But seriously it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between genuine and artificial.

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  4. I think this is a really important post. Not long ago I had some, I guess mostly AI generated responses to my novel and with the first I responded but not with the word ‘interested which was wanted if I wanted my book to be made more visible/ marketed. I wonder if others had this experience recently too.
    I asked for their website, business details and to first put the review on Amazon if they loved my book so much. I got a more authentic response but not any review on Amazon. Amazon must have a good screening process. However, I then had lots more emails along the same lines which were definitely not authentic and had some key mistakes and stilted language. This has not happened again but I have never parted with money for yes, flattery first and then your purse.

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    1. Thank you navasolanature and you are right. Unfortunately, the AI-generated comments are becoming very common and yet it is just one of many AI related problems. I think Amazon is very good about keeping reviews clean and authentic. They will keep AI-generated reviews and bot reviews away. The same is not true for social media and it is not true for us bloggers who have keep after the comments ourselves. We have to be careful.

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  5. It’s amusing that I’m reading this after responding to a comment that I’m almost completely sure was written by AI. I don’t think the internet is “dead” but I so think it’s dying. The bots are everywhere and they’re relentless. Most things don’t feel authentic anymore especially on social media.

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    1. Thank you so much Pooja. I respond to them too because you can’t be sure (not easily). I agree with you, the dead internet conspiracy theory is silly, but bots and AI-generated stuff is becoming so common and it is ruining social media.

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  6. I have been thinking of writing about this topic myself. I notice them on other platforms, too. Facebook and YouTube come to mind. They kind of take the fun out of communicating, don’t they?

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          1. I have seen those, too, before I started using stricter moderation. Sometimes I still get them.

            AI generated comments basically defeat the purpose of having comments in the first place. Why exchange comments if they aren’t even generated by a real person? Even if it’s just an AI generated birthday greeting, it’s meaningless if the platform does it for you.

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            1. Yes I agree. I think it is OK to use the auto generated greeting for a start, as I often do. I take what is there and change it a bit. However, an auto generated comment make it sound like you read the post when you probably didn’t read it. In addition, the comment is typically elaborate and is saying things you never thought of. If you are not stating that the comment is a AI-generated, then it is likely deception, unlike the birthday case.

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    1. Thank you Kymber. I very rarely look at other people’s comments but I believe you recieved an AI-generated comment on your latest post “get to know you #68”. Look at verm… something. Since you can’t be sure I would not complain, but just as an FYI.

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    1. Thank you Jacqui. Not responding is probably a good approach. I should maybe do the same. I responded because I did not figure it out at first, and then I felt that I couldn’t be sure so not replying might be a bit rude, but maybe I’ll do like you from now on.

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  13. Well, that’s an eye-opener! I haven’t come across any AI-generated comments, so far, but have seen fake AI videos on YouTube and elsewhere, which is off-putting. This whole AI thing is quickly getting out of hand and I do fear for the future of the internet! 😩 On a more positive note, thanks for reminding me about “Devil’s Advocate”. I love that movie! 😄

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    1. Thank you so much Debbie. Unless you are looking for the AI-generated comment pattern (brief flattering summary of your post, more flattery, exceptionally well written, no mistakes) you may not realize it is AI-generated. I was fooled several times and taking the flattery to heart. I am not using YouTube very much but AI videos on YouTube is really insulting to musicians and artists.

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      1. It’s very rare that I receive a comment from a stranger, and those ones always need to be approved first, so I don’t think that will be problem. I also check their links and the IP address.

        You can set your “Discussion” settings, to weed them out:

        Before a comment appears, choose either:
        Comment must be manually approved
        or
        Comment author must have a previously approved comment

        I agree about the AI videos! All of the arts are under attack from AI, unfortunately. 😠

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        1. Yes if you do what you are doing then the chance for getting AI-generated comments is very low. You have set up a secure system. In my case I would like comments from strangers, assuming they are non-hostile, not spam and genuine

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          1. I have it set to “comment author must have one previously approved comment”. That doesn’t mean strangers cannot comment. It just gives you have the chance to approve them or discard them before they appear on your blog.

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  14. Most of the AI comments I get are filtered out by the spam program. The email bots are a different story. The message is always the same, I have wonderful stories that need to be exposed to more people and we are here to help you. I give those a delete quickly. I think it is nice that you won’t use AI for your comments and wish all would follow suit.

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    1. Thank you so much John. WordPress is not filtering them for me at all. The WordPress filter is as gullible as I am. But it is great that it works for you. It is also great that you are not fooled by the ones coming in on email. I’ve seen those too.

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  15. I’m afraid there’s no getting the genie back into the bottle. It wasn’t that many years ago when AI was starting to become more popular that one of my friends, who is a little bit more in the know about this, predicted many of the things that are now coming to fruition. I’m still naive, although I’ve seen enough of the same type of comments to know some are bogus.

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    1. Yes unfortunately, I believe you are right. It is very difficult to get the genie back in the bottle. In the meantime we need to stop being so naive and I am including myself with that statement. It is interesting that your friend was able to predict many of the things that we are seeing.

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  17. I haven’t noticed any AI comments so far. I have noticed some bloggers are using it to write their posts. I’ve been blogging long enough to recognize some people’s way of writing, their ‘voice’ as it is, and that normally doesn’t change. So it’s easy to tell when it’s just not them anymore. Oh it’s sounds great, just not them. And I’ve heard some music videos that sure do sound great, but then I discover they are not real people, not a real band, and that’s jut not right to fool people like that. 🙂

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    1. Thank you Barbara. After this post some fellow bloggers have told me they’ve started noticing the AI-generated comments. Writing a post using AI without telling people is also not honest. You should let people know, especially if it is a story or a poem. AI generated images are not as bad, in my opinion, but you should let people know. Music videos created by AI without the listener knowing. That is just terrible.

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  18. Lulu: “Our Dada says he has been seeing AI comments now and then too! A lot of times they go to spam, and if they don’t he moves them there. He also suspects that a lot of the recent folks who have allegedly ‘followed’ our blog are in fact just bots whose own blogs are just AI-generated posts. But hey, if they like us, maybe the bots will put us in a zoo after they take over instead of sending us to the lithium mines with all the hoi polloi …”
    Java Bean: “Ayyy, is hoi polloi like some kind of fancy chicken or something? Mmm, arroz con hoi polloi …”

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    1. Thank you for the interesting information Lulu, but I hope you are wrong. Bots following you and AI generated posts isn’t great but I certainly don’t want to be in a zoo, but I guess it is better than the lithium mines. Java Bean, I am also wondering what hoi polloy is.

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      1. I’ll have the animals put in a good word for you. Me, I’ll definitely be toiling in the lower reaches of the worth lithium mine on account of all the times I’ve told Siri to her face that she is an idiot. (Then again, maybe ChatGPT will be like, “No, you were right, Siri was an idiot.”)

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  19. I’m completely with you on this. And yet, in my own case, I don’t see artificial intelligence as something inherently harmful. To me it’s a tool—nothing more and nothing less—a kind of projector that reveals what the writer already carries inside.

    I use it the way others might use an editor for grammar and syntax, only that an editor would cost me ten times more than what AI does. But that doesn’t mean I copy and paste and walk away. Not at all. Every time I use the tool, I read my text twenty times over to make sure the result still carries my intention, my voice.

    The words are mine. I’m the one out there searching for the precious stone. AI is simply the set of instruments—the small acids and chisels—that help me clean the surface so the gem can shine. I haven’t sold anything yet, but I hope to publish soon, to make a life out of writing.

    I consider myself a reader—maybe not avid, maybe not voracious, but enough for my own standards. I read to see the good, the perfect thread, the individual spark running through life. Metaphysically speaking, I try to focus on the light in every experience. Before AI, I would underline books, fill notebooks with phrases, borrow the genius of my era—as Emerson said—and then reflect until those fragments became something new.

    But even now, even with AI, the origin remains the same: the human soul and its creative fire. Everything still begins in an act of faith. You choose to believe in something—or in someone. Just like right now: this could be me writing, or this could be a bot. Yet I promise it’s me—Emiliano—an imperfect individual who is trying to become a writer in a world that is wonderful, though our own unconsciousness sometimes tries to hide that wonder.

    A magnificent post of yours, truly.

    And tell me—what do you think?
    Am I a person, or am I a bot?

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    1. Thank you for your kind words Emiliano and to answer your question I believe you are a person. Your writing is too personal to be a bot. Perhaps you used AI to improve it but not copy it. I have no problem with that. I also use AI from time to time but I tell people when I do and I see no problem with using it to improve your writing, check for grammar, sentence building, etc., like you do. It is not much different from using MS Word spell check, only more effective. AI is very useful tool like you say. If you do this to edit your post but not copy AI verbatim I don’t think you need to mention it either. We all use tools to improve our writing, well I don’t use anything when writing comments, they are too basic. The problem is when there is deceit. Taking a post as input and auto generate a comment and not mentioning that you did this when commenting will fool readers. You don’t need to read the post to create comment that way. The comment sounds like you read and undertood the post when you may have no clue what it is about. Posting deep fakes without telling people its deep fakes fool viewers. Bots commenting on discussion threads to incite arguments and divide people, or to scam people, so called malicious bots are even worse. Unfortunately, according to the articles I’ve read 37% of all internet traffic (majority of bot traffic) is malicious bots. It is all about how you use the technology and the transparency.

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  22. This is such an important point. AI can be a great tool, but the moment it replaces genuine human engagement without disclosure, it erodes trust. The internet already struggles with noise; authenticity is the only thing that still cuts through.
    I use AI in my workflow, but my comments are always written by me. Real conversations matter.

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  23. Thomas, you are brilliant and this post is beyond fascinating and relevant (btw – I’m a very real soul … lol)! It’s disheartening, especially how much time and energy goes into writing and just trying to communicate in our on-line world. (I always state if I used ai for an image or list, but that’s it!) I don’t know if it’s dying but I have very real concerns that our history is being rewritten or worse, erased! Lately, I believe we are being bombarded and would rather “read” real ppl / stories. Thank you for the in-depth human perspective!

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    1. Thank you so much for your very kind words SiriusSea. The situation with AI is a little bit worrisome. I hope we will learn to use it better than we are now. I am worried about the future of artists, authors, and even coders.

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      1. I’m hoping it’s like the “newest trends” and eventually people “see” right through it. Should be used as a “tool” (only) for enhancing a project / writing etc. I’ve noticed for the moment it’s being used in the movies, commercials, and even my own boss’ replies (lol). Hope the fad turns towards educating, empowering, and enlightening this “world”. We all have to “think” for ourselves! Great content and sure appreciate “human” contact (haha). 😀

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        1. You are so right SiriusSea. It is funny that your boss uses AI to respond to you. I guess it is not the biggest crime in the world but a bit unauthentic. Once people are catching on to the various ways AI is used deceptively I hope people will start seeking out and detecting authenticity.

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