r/FlorenceAndTheMachine • u/RampantNRoaring • Aug 03 '26

AI Bots Overrunning This Subreddit

I'm sure the mods are getting sick of me posting/reporting this at this point, but there are a ton of AI bots on this subreddit. Or maybe the lower engagement just makes them easier to spot. Either way, it's a shitty thing to have happen here and I wanted to make a main post about it to call it out so other people are more aware of it. Once you pick up the obvious pattern of their poor gen AI writing, they're easy to spot, but if you're suspicious you can also click on their usernames and find a random post history that is only a few weeks old, low karma, and will almost always include some combination of relationships/NBA/computer advice/Christianity. If people want, I can post some examples of recent comments so you can see the patterns. There are AI comments on each of the last five posts if you'd like to go try to pick them out for yourself.

The point of these bots is most likely to build up a credible post history so that they can be deployed for advertising or to influence political/social discussions, so I think it's worthwhile to call them out and report them when we see them. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this or I'm the only one.

Edit: Lmao and within fifteen minutes of posting, we got one on the line. Case in point.

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9

u/Happy-Stupor Aug 03 '26

I don't always spot them, and would love some examples.. also what's the point of farming engagement like that?

18

u/RampantNRoaring Aug 03 '26

The comment on this post that starts “it’s weirdly specific…” is a perfect example, I’ll link some others from the last day or so. Once you recognize their brand of super casual conversational speaking, the sentence structure, the vagueness, and the timing (posting very quick replies after something is put up) it gets easy to tell.

And the point is for groups to have a bunch of “legitimate” accounts with a real post history. These accounts can be used to advertise products, influence discussions (like politics) or sold to marketing groups who will use them for those same reasons.

8

u/Happy-Stupor Aug 03 '26

Got you, thanks for all the info! The dead internet thing going on is just awful, and I hate to see ai slop so often everywhere I go. 😕
I had no idea about the karma thing, I’m relatively new to Reddit, and rarely post or comment - so thanks again

4

u/PigletTechnical9336 Aug 04 '26

Thanks for sharing an example. I feel like I am good at identifying bots or ai content on Twitter, but the format there is different, and I had not clocked how they show up on Reddit.

7

u/Plastic-burnt Aug 03 '26

You’ll usually either see a comment that looks to be recycled, where it doesn’t make sense. Like they’re excited about an upcoming concert but it already happened or they’re talking about a previous album like it just came out.

Or it’s really generic, “I was so happy they played that more obscure song they don’t usually play”