What are your thoughts on using AI bots to respond to forum posts?

 

 

 

Do you think it’s a good idea or a bad idea?

 

 

 

Personally, I’m not a fan of using AI bots in a community. I believe it’s a poor approach to community building, especially since an AI bot isn’t an actual member and lacks authenticity.

 

 

 

It raises an important question:

 

 

Are you building a community for users, or for bots?

I think there can be a place for bots but it’s not every community.

 

Consider a support community where the people are asking questions and searching for answers - a bot can certainly offer a suggested answer. Depending on the question it even stands a shot at being in the right ball park.

 

I have even seen it in a collaborative writing community for “I have no one to write with right now so I’m going to use a bot to write with” but this feels very much like an outlier.

On help forums it's great. On any other forums I'm not so sure. I know they can be entertaining for a while. That wears off quickly.

I prefer to avoid bots, autoresponders, llm generators, etc. I wish to cater to humans. (the irony of my site lol)

I guess it could work on some forums, but I'm not a fan of using AI for my forum.

I prefer to avoid bots, autoresponders, llm generators, etc. I wish to cater to humans. (the irony of my site lol)

 

Same here. I’ve noticed some communities using bots to respond to posters as an engagement tactic, but doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of building a community?

 

 

Is the goal to provide a sense of belonging for humans, or just to inflate activity with bots?

 

 

Some social media platforms are already overrun with bot-generated content. Do we really want to see that kind of artificial interaction spilling over into forums too?

I think there can be a place for bots but it’s not every community.

 

Consider a support community where the people are asking questions and searching for answers - a bot can certainly offer a suggested answer. Depending on the question it even stands a shot at being in the right ball park.

 

I have even seen it in a collaborative writing community for “I have no one to write with right now so I’m going to use a bot to write with” but this feels very much like an outlier.

 

Using bots to respond to support questions makes sense to me. They can be a valuable tool for assisting the staff team and ensuring users get help when staff members aren’t available. It’s a practical way to bridge the gap and provide timely support.

It becomes rather obvious when you get a reply as fast as it takes your post to render for you.

I think some bot posts are fine, until a human staff member can reply to the post. Though I personally wouldn't use AI, I prefer human responses and I don't even rely on AI to help me post. :V It can help on some sites, but I don't think every forum should rely on the use of AI.

I think if you’re going to have AI on a forum, there needs to be some question of what value it brings to the forum that isn’t otherwise met.

 

On a support board, the value proposition is a maybe-helpful but timely response. The roleplay site I’ve seen it done with, where it’s people writing responses back and forth with AI is again a timely-response problem (though there is some internal bias of who someone chooses to, or chooses not to, write with)

 

There are valid other uses for AI, or more precisely machine learning, in forums: think about categorisation of images (are they NSFW), suggesting categories for content if the user hasn’t picked one. There’s also people doing things with moderation - looking for profanity, toxicity, bad sentiment. (I saw a few years ago that a university was using forum posts with sentiment analysis as a signal towards if a student is going to drop out or otherwise have a poor outcome)

 

What these all have in common is the use of AI/ML to find commonalities and to offer up “this is like that”, which is even what the generative stuff is doing, whether it’s finding solutions to common problems or it’s having a partner willing to spar with you on demand (where the goal is simply to enjoy the journey rather than to meaningfully advance a meta narrative)

 

Most of the rest of jamming AI every which way doesn’t provide value, so should be given the contempt it deserves.

A support forum is a good example of a proper AI bot. Or a bot labeled as such, that's there to imitate someone. Cheap example here, but think of an Elvis bot on your Elvis forum that you can interact with for fun. That would work and it wouldn't bother me at all.

 

But other than that, I'm seeing many issues.

 

Imagine that you allow your members to create a second account that is their AI account. In this case, the human is the AI's transmission belt, allowing the AI to interact with the forum. Now consider this... You and I on the other end, we're going to be posting on the forum, interacting with this "member", maybe not even knowing if it's a human or an AI.

 

That's a big deal breaker for me. Forums are a communication tool to connect with other people. Having an AI behind the accounts that participate in the discussion somehow breaks that promise.

 

Ever heard of the Dead Internet Theory? Allowing bots to act as members is a (big) step in that direction. Diminishing the quality and authenticity of your content. I certainly don't want my forum to become an echo chamber of bots exchanging tasteless rhetoric and empty discourse.

It becomes rather obvious when you get a reply as fast as it takes your post to render for you.

Exactly. I can’t wait until the day that Google lays the ban hammer on the sites that uses them and deindexes them for breaking their spam guidelines.😅

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies

 

Scaled content abuse is when many pages are generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users. This abusive practice is typically focused on creating large amounts of unoriginal content that provides little to no value to users, no matter how it's created.

 

Examples of scaled content abuse include, but are not limited to:

 

• Using generative AI tools or other similar tools to generate many pages without adding value for users
  
• Scraping feeds, search results, or other content to generate many pages (including through automated transformations like synonymizing, translating, or other obfuscation techniques), where little value is provided to users
  
• Stitching or combining content from different web pages without adding value
  
• Creating multiple sites with the intent of hiding the scaled nature of the content
  
• Creating many pages where the content makes little or no sense to a reader but contains search keywords
  

I am not a fan at all. As others have stated, I can see some very limited example use-cases where it might be appropriate - technical support forums, roleplaying forums and the like.

 

I recently saw an AI bot replying to threads/posts made on a forum within a couple of seconds. The content is clearly AI-generated and as a member is really de-motivating to see - I initially thought, damn, someone replied to my thread fast! - only to find out it was an AI bot that literally gave a message that was almost a direct prompt from ChatGPT... ugh. :sick:

I don't like them even though I am using it on a forum I co-own and also on a forum I manage. However, I can justify the use of AI bots on some sections. It can keep the discussion lively for a certain category.

I rather have real discussions with actual members on my forum. I'm sure Google prefers that too, and I don't want my forum to get penalized for AI content.

Much rather real discussions by real people. AI/ML has a time and place I could see it being an assistance to moderation (not a full on replacement just does certain) tasks.

Since AI went viral, the blockers or members who created natural content for communities have ceased to exist, now everything is based on AI generated. For me it is an initial topic maybe we can leave it but for answers I would not see it well.

Edited February 21Feb 21 by SomosTuZona

Since AI went viral, the blockers or members who created natural content for communities have ceased to exist, now everything is based on AI generated. For me it is an initial topic maybe we can leave it but for answers I would not see it well.

 

Had to translate.

Had to translate.

My bad problem solved thank you 🙏🏻

Since AI went viral, the blockers or members who created natural content for communities have ceased to exist, now everything is based on AI generated. For me it is an initial topic maybe we can leave it but for answers I would not see it well.

The sense of community is still there, but those who think they can build a thriving forum solely through AI-generated content are just gaming the system. In the long run, they’re only hurting their own community.

 

 

 

Forums that prioritize human interaction will always outlast and outperform those relying on AI bots. The key difference is that true community builders love and appreciate the process of fostering connections, while those using bots are often doing it for their own convenience or entertainment rather than for the sake of the community itself.

Really depends on the quality of the content. I don't think the technology is there to expect true opinionated responses to human questions or discussions. And if it's a bot to send "welcome to the forums" style posts, that's a big no-no to me. It's impersonal and it stinks.

 

It's the same as when I have had a welcome PM from a dummy/bot account. Send it from YOU. Be human, be a person.

This is why it’s not a good idea to use AI chat bots on your forum.

 

Two forums that have been recently using AI bots on their forum have recently been smacked and lost of all of their organic traffic.

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This is all according to SEMrush, which means, their forums are no longer ranking on google for any keywords. Which is a bad thing as they will no longer be receiving any traffic from Google. This can lead to a total deindexing as well.

 

 

Organic Search Traffic: 5 (-96%) – This means the site is getting almost no organic visitors, and traffic has dropped significantly.

 

With 1 visibility on one forum, it means almost zero visibility on Google, meaning the site isn’t ranking well for any significant keywords.

What are your thoughts on using AI bots to respond to forum posts?

It makes me not want to be active on the forums anymore.

 

If they're transparent about it and I'm enabled to ignore the bot, then fine.

 

If they're being secretive about it: I'll pass.

 

Why should I work hard posting quality content on a forum where humans aren't even replying to me? I can just open ChatGPT and do that if I wanted to talk to bots all day.

Personally, I prefer genuine responses over AI-generated ones. Forums are meant for real discussions, where people can share experiences, insights, and opinions. AI can be useful for quick information, but it often lacks the personal touch and real-world experience that make forums valuable. I think human interaction is what makes communities thrive!

I saw this on one scammer( The Forum admin) forum where the admin used AI bots to respond to posts. Honestly, I think it’s a bad idea because it takes away from real connections and trust.. Real conversations are more important than automatic replies when it comes to creating a true and honest community..