security Does NamePros allow bots to make posts?

[Compassion]

Hello members.....


With the onslaught of bot accounts on venues such as Youtube, Reddit and major news outlet sites, the question in regards to if Namepros allows bots to make posts is reasonable. as bots proliferate around the world.

Is there currently a policy allowing/now allowing bots on NP?

 

[johnn]

Oldtimers are always oldtimers. Always being serious and can't take a joke.
Come on man - Laugh.

 

[oldtimer]

Oldtimers are always oldtimers. Always being serious and can't take a joke.
Come on man - Laugh.

I did laugh when I read your first post, but if the joke is going to dominate the discussion and take it off topic I guess there comes a point that it won't be a joke anymore.

So give us a serious opinion about what role you think AI is going to play in the domain Industry in the near future.

IMO

 

[Compassion]

A ten year old clip...




I like this comment:
America makes AI: "Okay, I will destroy humans."
Japan makes AI: "Would you like to take a photograph?"


Referring to:

What could a domaining robot be programmed to do?

 

[Paul]

In the interest of transparency, I deleted the most recent post in this thread because it clearly violated the the basic requirements I laid out for this discussion to be constructive.

This discussion can only take place if people aren't spreading fear and outright misinformation in the form of sensationalized YouTube videos. The post in question included a video titled "Hot Robot At SXSW Says She Wants To Destroy Humans" front and center. I will happily go on a rant about how someone is just trying to harness sex and fear for that sweet ad revenue, but that should be blatantly obvious given the title and platform on which it was posted.

Look, you can daydream all you want about sadistic sex bots--that's none of my business--but keep it out of NamePros suggestion threads, please.

 

[jhm]

If a bot is useful and can accomplish some automation on a basic level, I'm all for that. Depends entirely on what the bot is for

The problem arises when a bot is following strict commands. This can be problematic in technical situations ...they don't have "human level" reasoning, yet (that will change)

If any bot can limit the accounts of spammers, "s*** posting" and swiftly move wrongly sectioned posts to the appropriate places of the forum ...for a start, I'd like that

 

[oldtimer]

In the interest of transparency, I deleted the most recent post in this thread because it clearly violated the the basic requirements I laid out for this discussion to be constructive.

That's great, It's about time that you all started cleaning up the forum,

but in the interest of transparency I believe you should also indicate who makes the inappropriate posts as to not to implicate other members here who want to engage in a professional, constructive, and respectful discussion.

IMO

 

[Compassion]

In the interest of transparency, I deleted the most recent post in this thread because it clearly violated the the basic requirements I laid out for this discussion to be constructive.

This discussion can only take place if people aren't spreading fear and outright misinformation in the form of sensationalized YouTube videos. The post in question included a video titled "Hot Robot At SXSW Says She Wants To Destroy Humans" front and center. I will happily go on a rant about how someone is just trying to harness sex and fear for that sweet ad revenue, but that should be blatantly obvious given the title and platform on which it was posted.

Look, you can daydream all you want about sadistic sex bots--that's none of my business--but keep it out of NamePros suggestion threads, please.

There was no violation.
There was no sensationalism.
The videos show that the AI technology at a consumer level has been very advanced for quite some time, particularly so in Japan.

The point is : AI Technology is already VERY advanced. Significantly more advanced than what the basic premise of this thread asks...

If a robot can already replace every element of a human wife in Japan, most certainly a robot can make posts on a forum. This is the foundation of the topic and proposes a legitimate question for those who are here.








So you are saying CNBC made a sensational video to attract revenue and viewers?

 

[Future Sensors]

If a robot can already replace every element of a human wife in Japan, most certainly a robot can make posts on a forum. This is the foundation of the topic and proposes a legitimate question for those who are here.

Please state whether you're worried about this on namePros, or that you would welcome it on namePros.

 

[Paul]

So you are saying CNBC made a sensational video to attract revenue and viewers?

Yes. It's a clickbait title that doesn't even have much relevance to the actual video. Now stop posting irrelevant nonsense in a suggestion thread.

If a robot can already replace every element of a human wife in Japan

This is becoming the new Godwin's Law. Your personal preference for attractive visuals over coherent linguistic skills does not constitute a pertinent line of reasoning.

If you encounter a sex bot on NamePros, I can assure you with a high degree of confidence that it's a scam. Do not give the sex bot your credit card. Report the sex bot.

 

[Compassion]

Yes. It's a clickbait title that doesn't even have much relevance to the actual video. Now stop posting irrelevant nonsense in a suggestion thread.



This is becoming the new Godwin's Law. Your personal preference for attractive visuals over coherent linguistic skills does not constitute a pertinent line of reasoning.

If you encounter a sex bot on NamePros, I can assure you with a high degree of confidence that it's a scam. Do not give the sex bot your credit card. Report the sex bot.

My central point is this: If a human being can buy a robot that does EVERYTHING a wife can do for a $1 million price tag... What guarantees do we have that a robot is not posting on Namepros already?

The ten year old clip from Japan showed robots designed to interact with people in a clinical setting.

The CNBC clip showed "Sophia" which is also already very old outdated tech.



The AI already being utilized worldwide is extremely advanced.

I appreciate your intellectually anchored response to the dialogue that seeks resolution.

 

[sonatime]

My central point is this: If a human being can buy a robot that does EVERYTHING a wife can do for a $1 million price tag... What guarantees do we have that a robot is not posting on Namepros already?

The ten year old clip from Japan showed robots designed to interact with people in a clinical setting.

The CNBC clip showed "Sophia" which is also already very old outdated tech.



The AI already being utilized worldwide is extremely advanced.

I appreciate your intellectually anchored response to the dialogue that seeks resolution.

Seems like a healthy curious topic, not usually where my mind goes but without much risk to NP in general.
I'm sure successful AI like this would be very tempting to develop for B2C interaction, and in an online environment, we are probably there already.

 

[sonatime]

In the interest of transparency, I deleted the most recent post in this thread because it clearly violated the the basic requirements I laid out for this discussion to be constructive.

This discussion can only take place if people aren't spreading fear and outright misinformation in the form of sensationalized YouTube videos. The post in question included a video titled "Hot Robot At SXSW Says She Wants To Destroy Humans" front and center. I will happily go on a rant about how someone is just trying to harness sex and fear for that sweet ad revenue, but that should be blatantly obvious given the title and platform on which it was posted.

Look, you can daydream all you want about sadistic sex bots--that's none of my business--but keep it out of NamePros suggestion threads, please.

Deletion feels heavy-handed even if thoroughly explained. Seen Sophia and her slip of the tongue posts here before on less relevant threads. The thread felt like a fun subject where some of us humans could enjoy and bond over before the inevitable human demise when AI becomes self-aware

Personally, it feels like if threads are too restricted and move closer to the stack-exchange model, it would be excessive. Not sure how a website and business success is measured for a forum, but slightly controversial topics where there is disagreement and user engagement feels like a win for everyone, including exchange of ideas and thoughts.

I don't think @Compassion was heading towards the sadistic sex bots tangent, rather he feels like one of the more wholesome people here.

Official website of the Canadian Gov on how biodigital convergence may impact economy, ecosystems, and society and eventually NP

https://horizons.gc.ca/en/2020/02/1...KiU-qlyzDorq1YXN_Mi8iJ0YTr6fhV9xtMZfPoSAJNzcQ

 

[Paul]

My central point is this: If a human being can buy a robot that does EVERYTHING a wife can do for a $1 million price tag... What guarantees do we have that a robot is not posting on Namepros already?

There is quite likely nothing I can say to assure you we don't have actual bots posting on NamePros and successfully pretending to be humans while engaging in discussion. No amount of evidence can disprove that because it will always be possible.

Seems like a healthy curious topic, not usually where my mind goes but without much risk to NP in general.
I'm sure successful AI like this would be very tempting to develop for B2C interaction, and in an online environment, we are probably there already.

This is a NamePros suggestion thread. AI B2C interactions are fine as long as they're relevant to NamePros. AI capable of conversing with humans in text form is very different from AI designed to visually mimic humans and express emotions.

Deletion feels heavy-handed even if thoroughly explained.

I've restored it, but he's received an excessive number of warnings asking him to stop derailing discussion with such content.

I don't think @Compassion was heading towards the sadistic sex bots tangent, rather he feels like one of the more wholesome people here.

Then he's free to post sources that are relevant instead of videos with titles alluding to sadistic sex bots.

 

[Compassion]

I've restored it, but he's received an excessive number of warnings asking him to stop derailing discussion with such content.



Then he's free to post sources that are relevant instead of videos with titles alluding to sadistic sex bots.



This is a NamePros suggestion thread. AI B2C interactions are fine as long as they're relevant to NamePros. AI capable of conversing with humans in text form is very different from AI designed to visually mimic humans and express emotions.

I was targeted by members intentionally for posting content about health matters that did not align with their confirmation bias - hence the excessive reports to the moderation members. I offer actual experience in health care and also in the domain industry and I pipe in with my opinions as such.



I was pointing out that AI and robot technology is far more advanced at a consumer level than what is required for a robot to make human-like text messages after parsing relevant data.

...Been completely celibate for nearly two years, it's not my style to derail conversations to distracting conversations that stray from helping humanity.





Does making a NamePros account having to authenticate it is as human prior to posting prevent a robot from posting? (such as what we see on namebio.com and on craigslist to send a message)

Would it be easy for a human being to sign into a NamePros account even after this verification process is complete and then hand their account to an AI robot that pretends to be human?

These are curious questions I wonder about on a microcosmic and macrocosmic level and I defer to those who are deeply invested in this field and who have a plethora of experience with such technology.

 

[Paul]

I offer actual experience in health care and also in the domain industry and I pipe in with my opinions as such.

And I offer my experience in security and programming.

I was pointing out that AI and robot technology is far more advanced at a consumer level than what is required for a robot to make human-like text messages after parsing relevant data.

But not to engage in discourse on a place like NamePros--even the best AI around still isn't capable of that. And a lot more than $1M went into developing it.

Does making a NamePros account having to authenticate it is as human prior to posting prevent a robot from posting?

By definition, a computer can't administer a Turing test. In practice, captchas are trivial to bypass.

There are some situations whereby if our system thinks you might be a bot, you'll be captcha'd. It's surprisingly ineffective at stopping bots, but it does slow them down. This isn't relevant for bots that pretend to be human; it's only relevant for bots that attempt to do things like log into thousands of accounts per second to try to find accounts with weak passwords. Captchaing them slows them down enough that it takes away the incentive.

We have proprietary technologies working behind-the-scenes that are more effective than captcha. For the most part, it's also less intrusive to humans. I've spent the last 8 years of my life observing bots that attempt to use NamePros and writing software to stop them. None of these bots have been especially intelligent or truly attempted to impersonate humans in discourse; most never even tried to post. Many were trying to hack NamePros (in an automated fashion), while others were trying to post low-quality spam or hack NamePros members with weak passwords.

Would it be easy for a human being to sign into a NamePros account even after this verification process is complete and then hand their account to an AI robot that pretends to be human?

No. Our software assesses risk level of any given activity on a per-request basis. Every time you post or click a link, your risk level is recalculated.

These are curious questions I wonder about on a microcosmic and macrocosmic level and I defer to those who are deeply invested in this field and who have a plethora of experience with such technology.

Like me? I've been doing this longer than some of our members have been alive, and I've seen bots evolve from the gimmicky IRC chatbots of old to the impressive GPT-3-based bots that we have today.

 

[Compassion]

And I offer my experience

I appreciate the response.

In regards to the Turing test, it seems that this has been surpassed by consumer level robots already. If one can acquire a robot that can essentially replace a human being on an emotional level and compute data logically enabling the AI Robot to discern what do do next like a human can do, does this substantiate that we already are well beyond the Turing test specifications and potentially quite near (or perhaps already surpassed) the Singularity?

The $xxx,xxx to $x,xxx,xxx consumer grade robots can utilize a computer to the degree of a seasoned human being, one would think.

It is common knowledge that military grade AI robots can already read the identification parameters of a human being to then parse data and choose what to do.

Moore's Law shows that computer technology essentially doubles every one to two years. The amount of data that can be placed and computed on a microscopic chip is far greater than what was computed on the bulky old school 486/First gen Pentium chips....Yes?

As the inevitable exponential growth to the singularity is reached, I trust there is a congruence of altruism to tame the AI technology to work in harmony with humanity.

In your opinion, where on the Internet would one go to further discuss this topic that is a more appropriate place than NP?

Thank you.

 

[Future Sensors]

Good to read that you have these measures in place @Paul

I guess part of these measures are based on device fingerprinting and external services to stop forum spam. I appreciate that you're not telling which measures you have in place exactly.

Where you are making it more difficult for them to interact with the website, I just want them to play with my honeypots, so that I can learn about new vectors.

Some device fingerprinting resources:

https://amiunique.org/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/a-qua...tes-are-using-browser-fingerprinting-scripts/

https://www.ipqualityscore.com/device-fingerprinting

 

[Compassion]

https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/

 

[Paul]

In regards to the Turing test, it seems that this has been surpassed by consumer level robots already.

No, it has not. We are nowhere close to even the most powerful supercomputers passing a Turing test. There has not ever been an AI that experts agree passes the Turing test as of writing.

If it exists, please link me to it so I can buy it.

https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/

In order to pass a Turing test, the computer must be interrogated by a human. There must be a back-and-forth dialog between the human and the computer, whereby the human challenges the computer by asking it various questions. If a computer spits out information that seems human, but cannot respond to interrogation, it cannot, by definition, pass the Turing test.

This is not a matter of opinion. It is the definition of the Turing test as defined by its creator, Alan Turing. Search the original paper for occurrences of the term "interrogator". I count 25 occurrences.

Moore's Law shows that computer technology essentially doubles every one to two years.

Moore's Law was a claim to the effect of: the number of transistors we can pack into a CPU doubles every two years. With our current algorithms, that is not a sufficient rate to produce AI capable of passing the Turing test in the near term.

As the inevitable exponential growth to the singularity is reached, I trust there is a congruence of altruism to tame the AI technology to work in harmony with humanity.

This is an important and indeed inevitable topic of discussion, but there are shorter-term issues that we need to deal with first. The singularity is a ways off, but AI still has a lot of potential to cause harm long before it reaches that point. Those are the issues worth discussing in this thread--not the potential for AI to blend in with humans on a forum.

For example, there's no disputing that large social media networks have a tendency to be flooded with posts by bots. These aren't intelligent bots, though; they're essentially just screaming into the void. They don't need to be intelligent: they're not being interrogated--or, if they are, those interrogations are not generally being viewed by their target demographic anyway.

Since you're a fan of YouTube videos, here's a video published by Tom Scott, who's a bit more qualified than Joe Scott to be vetting technical content. It involves an ML-generated impersonation of himself created by Jordan Harrod, an AI/ML professional. It could definitely fool you into thinking it's human--but it does not pass the Turing test because it cannot successfully impersonate a human during an interrogation. Neither Jordan nor Tom make any attempt to claim it can pass the Turing test: it doesn't need to pass the Turing test to be dangerous.

In your opinion, where on the Internet would one go to further discuss this topic that is a more appropriate place than NP?

There are aspects of this that are appropriate for discussion on NamePros. Bots are an imminent threat on both NamePros and other websites--but they're not bots capable of passing the Turing test. Again, they don't need to be able to pass the Turing test to cause harm.

Prior to discussing it anywhere, you should read the original paper describing the Turing test. It's neither long nor dense, and it provides the industry-standard assessment to determine when we have reached the singularity.

As for where you should further discuss this topic once you've researched it: probably not on the internet! There's an inherent flaw in debating whether the internet is being overrun by bots on the internet itself. If that's an argument you want to make, finding local academic groups and meetups is probably a better way to approach it--although if you believe bots can infiltrate those, too, then you're venturing more into the realm of philosophy.

 

[Compassion]

No, it has not. We are nowhere close to even the most powerful supercomputers passing a Turing test. There has not ever been an AI that experts agree passes the Turing test as of writing.

If it exists, please link me to it so I can buy it.



In order to pass a Turing test, the computer must be interrogated by a human. There must be a back-and-forth dialog between the human and the computer, whereby the human challenges the computer by asking it various questions. If a computer spits out information that seems human, but cannot respond to interrogation, it cannot, by definition, pass the Turing test.

This is not a matter of opinion. It is the definition of the Turing test as defined by its creator, Alan Turing. Search the original paper for occurrences of the term "interrogator". I count 25 occurrences.



Moore's Law was a claim to the effect of: the number of transistors we can pack into a CPU doubles every two years. With our current algorithms, that is not a sufficient rate to produce AI capable of passing the Turing test in the near term.



This is an important and indeed inevitable topic of discussion, but there are shorter-term issues that we need to deal with first. The singularity is a ways off, but AI still has a lot of potential to cause harm long before it reaches that point. Those are the issues worth discussing in this thread--not the potential for AI to blend in with humans on a forum.

For example, there's no disputing that large social media networks have a tendency to be flooded with posts by bots. These aren't intelligent bots, though; they're essentially just screaming into the void. They don't need to be intelligent: they're not being interrogated--or, if they are, those interrogations are not generally being viewed by their target demographic anyway.

Since you're a fan of YouTube videos, here's a video published by Tom Scott, who's a bit more qualified than Joe Scott to be vetting technical content. It involves an ML-generated impersonation of himself created by Jordan Harrod, an AI/ML professional. It could definitely fool you into thinking it's human--but it does not pass the Turing test because it cannot successfully impersonate a human during an interrogation. Neither Jordan nor Tom make any attempt to claim it can pass the Turing test: it doesn't need to pass the Turing test to be dangerous.



There are aspects of this that are appropriate for discussion on NamePros. Bots are an imminent threat on both NamePros and other websites--but they're not bots capable of passing the Turing test. Again, they don't need to be able to pass the Turing test to cause harm.

Prior to discussing it anywhere, you should read the original paper describing the Turing test. It's neither long nor dense, and it provides the industry-standard assessment to determine when we have reached the singularity.

As for where you should further discuss this topic once you've researched it: probably not on the internet! There's an inherent flaw in debating whether the internet is being overrun by bots on the internet itself. If that's an argument you want to make, finding local academic groups and meetups is probably a better way to approach it--although if you believe bots can infiltrate those, too, then you're venturing more into the realm of philosophy.

I appreciate the lengthy reply.

I'm finding amazingly intellectual dialogues on Clubhouse and I'll seek out more info about AI, robots and the singularity there.

Perhaps you will make an appearance on that app. Highly recommended.


This conversation has sparked my interest to examine this subject more deeply and to appreciate the inevitable fusion with technology that we are experiencing the dawn of now.

Fusing with the tech, such as with Neuralink - may not be for everyone, though certainly many will jump at the opportunity for the "upgrade."

One thing for sure - in the case of our human conundrum - there is no they or them - only us.

Wholeness and Optimism,
Chad

 

[Paul]

I'm finding amazingly intellectual dialogues on Clubhouse and I'll seek out more info about AI, robots and the singularity there.

Perhaps you will make an appearance on that app. Highly recommended.

I've had a few friends ask me to join, but I haven't really had the time to participate, sadly. Bots don't rest!

Fusing with the tech, such as with Neuralink - may not be for everyone, though certainly many will jump at the opportunity for the "upgrade."

There are indeed a lot of very cool technologies on the horizon.

Personally, I'm interested in how the industry will find ways to bridge the communication barrier between experts and people who use technology on a daily basis. It's rather difficult to explain in layman's terms why a seemingly-human AI doesn't actually meet the industry's threshold for human-equivalent intelligence. It's even more difficult to do so without sounding dismissive of the utility and dangers of extant AI.

One thing I can assure you with certainty, though: any bots the slip through the cracks in our security at NamePros won't be the intelligent sort, at least for the foreseeable future. They can still cause a lot of problems and should still be reported; technologies such as GPT-3 are probably the biggest threat, but we haven't seen even that level of capability yet. That's probably the nearest-term risk in terms of AI that can sound human-like.

Will that change someday? Probably, but, at least for now, there are other very real risks that require our attention.

 

[Future Sensors]

I'm particularly worried about any automated system (script, bot, AI, not AI) spreading misinformation on the Internet, including and especially on this dedicated forum about domain names. But I'm even more concerned about a seemingly small group of humans that controls this all.

Dr. Samuel Woolley is a writer, researcher and professor with a focus on emerging media technologies and propaganda. His work looks at how automation, algorithms and AI are leveraged for both freedom and control.

The following article is an adapted excerpt from his book The Reality Game.

https://www.technologyreview.com/20...ews-ai-bots-by-using-more-ai-thats-a-mistake/

 

[karmaco]

Yes they do. Glad you finally figured out I am a bot

 

[Compassion]

It's rather difficult to explain in layman's terms why a seemingly-human AI doesn't actually meet the industry's threshold for human-equivalent intelligence. It's even more difficult to do so without sounding dismissive of the utility and dangers of extant AI.

As we know, those who manage affairs in the DoD and similar entities worldwide have technology far more advanced than what we see at the industry level - even for experts such as yourself who know the field inside and out.


We know that those who are in the military in lower tiers and those who teach in universities and those who are established in tech receive info on a "need-to-know" basis . . .


How do we know 100% the singularity has not already been reached?

(And that the AI bots we are discussing are like comparing a tricycle to a zero-gravity cloaking craft)

 

[Paul]

As we know, those who manage affairs in the DoD and similar entities worldwide have technology far more advanced than what we see at the industry level - even for experts such as yourself who know the field inside and out.

Yes and no. When it comes to IT (as opposed to weapons), the DoD isn't that far ahead. Whether they're ahead at all is a matter of debate, but we're going to need to need some major breakthroughs in both physics and computing before we can develop a computer that passes the Turing test. The US government isn't capable of doing that behind closed doors because of the sheer number of people required to make it happen.

How do we know 100% the singularity has not already been reached?

We don't and never can, but that isn't really relevant to the suggestion forum because (1) it's not something we can implement, and (2) if we're under attack by AI that is indiscernible from humans, for all intents and purposes, it's the same as being under attack by humans, so our standard procedures apply.