Is this board being overrun by AI bot posts?

[Anonymous]

Lately I've seen a series of posts that look like they are real, but contain one or two details that seem to indicate that it was written by AI. One example is "Greek Orthodox folks: how do you navigate celebrating Easter at a different date in the US?" It seems believable, until you get to the part where OP's kid is 11. How have they been navigating Christmas for all these years, as that has the same problem?

There seem to be so many junk posts like this these days. Just wondering if you can see if these are real posters or some kind of bot designed to flood the site.

[jsteele]

I am fairly comfortable in saying that poster is not an A.I. bot. That said, there have been two recent issue with A.I.:

1) Posters using A.I. to compose their responses. They don't include their own thoughts but simply post something like "A.I. says blah, blah, blah". I delete those if they are brought to my attention.

2) A.I. bots that either start or respond to threads. There was a day in which two separate bots did this to over 100 threads. The responses and initial posts in new threads were very realistic. I only discovered it by accident. I have not see this occur on any other days, though I could easily have missed it happening again. Of course, I also delete these.

Despite these two issues, I wouldn't say the board is being overrun by A.I. bots. The real damage of A.I. to DCUM is that people get their answers from A.I. rather than DCUM and, hence, our usage is going down.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:I am fairly comfortable in saying that poster is not an A.I. bot. That said, there have been two recent issue with A.I.:

1) Posters using A.I. to compose their responses. They don't include their own thoughts but simply post something like "A.I. says blah, blah, blah". I delete those if they are brought to my attention.

2) A.I. bots that either start or respond to threads. There was a day in which two separate bots did this to over 100 threads. The responses and initial posts in new threads were very realistic. I only discovered it by accident. I have not see this occur on any other days, though I could easily have missed it happening again. Of course, I also delete these.

Despite these two issues, I wouldn't say the board is being overrun by A.I. bots. The real damage of A.I. to DCUM is that people get their answers from A.I. rather than DCUM and, hence, our usage is going down.

Something about that in particular is so bleak to me. Posting on a message board is completely voluntary; if you're so lazy that you need Chat GPT to compose your answer for you, why bother doing it?

I swear AI is going to be the death of society as we know it.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:The real damage of A.I. to DCUM is that people get their answers from A.I. rather than DCUM and, hence, our usage is going down.

I'll always come here when I need tough love and honesty. AI tells me everything I do is great. DCUM does not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:I am fairly comfortable in saying that poster is not an A.I. bot. That said, there have been two recent issue with A.I.:

1) Posters using A.I. to compose their responses. They don't include their own thoughts but simply post something like "A.I. says blah, blah, blah". I delete those if they are brought to my attention.

2) A.I. bots that either start or respond to threads. There was a day in which two separate bots did this to over 100 threads. The responses and initial posts in new threads were very realistic. I only discovered it by accident. I have not see this occur on any other days, though I could easily have missed it happening again. Of course, I also delete these.

Despite these two issues, I wouldn't say the board is being overrun by A.I. bots. The real damage of A.I. to DCUM is that people get their answers from A.I. rather than DCUM and, hence, our usage is going down.

Something about that in particular is so bleak to me. Posting on a message board is completely voluntary; if you're so lazy that you need Chat GPT to compose your answer for you, why bother doing it?

I swear AI is going to be the death of society as we know it.

It's not just here, but other places I frequent. The only reason I frequented those places was because they had real people with authentic responses and it's all gone to S*** now. I still call out the AI BS when I see it, but it's a losing cause. Agree it's really a shame because most of the people relying on those canned responses are being grossly mislead

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:I am fairly comfortable in saying that poster is not an A.I. bot. That said, there have been two recent issue with A.I.:

1) Posters using A.I. to compose their responses. They don't include their own thoughts but simply post something like "A.I. says blah, blah, blah". I delete those if they are brought to my attention.

2) A.I. bots that either start or respond to threads. There was a day in which two separate bots did this to over 100 threads. The responses and initial posts in new threads were very realistic. I only discovered it by accident. I have not see this occur on any other days, though I could easily have missed it happening again. Of course, I also delete these.

Despite these two issues, I wouldn't say the board is being overrun by A.I. bots. The real damage of A.I. to DCUM is that people get their answers from A.I. rather than DCUM and, hence, our usage is going down.

Something about that in particular is so bleak to me. Posting on a message board is completely voluntary; if you're so lazy that you need Chat GPT to compose your answer for you, why bother doing it?

I swear AI is going to be the death of society as we know it.

It's not just here, but other places I frequent. The only reason I frequented those places was because they had real people with authentic responses and it's all gone to S*** now. I still call out the AI BS when I see it, but it's a losing cause. Agree it's really a shame because most of the people relying on those canned responses are being grossly mislead

There was a thread on off-topic almost a year ago about "How often do you get advice from AI as opposed to DCUM" and I was like...wtf.

Why would you get AI from a chatbot? A chatbot. Like, I get using it to come up with a meal plan or a road trip itinerary but advice? You would rather talk to a robot than other humans for advice? What on earth?

And there were a number of people who said depending on the subject/what mood they were in they'd rather go to Chat GPT than here. One weirdo even said that she trained AI to sext with. (Not joking, I specitically remember my friends and I laughed about that one for weeks.)

It's a scourge. And then people wonder why we have cases like those two kids committing suicide after talking to a chatbot and it's like, adults are talking to chatbots. We've normalized it for these kids.

[Anonymous]

I’m glad to see the responses here. We don’t have to accept the “inevitability” of generative AI. We can simply not use it. We can write our own emails, plan our own meals, make our own schedules, get advice from other humans.

I know it seems bleak, but don’t lose hope. We have agency!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m glad to see the responses here. We don’t have to accept the “inevitability” of generative AI. We can simply not use it. We can write our own emails, plan our own meals, make our own schedules, get advice from other humans.

I know it seems bleak, but don’t lose hope. We have agency!

That's just it. When it's things like meal plans, travel itineraries, schedules, etc. - that I could actually understand using AI, because it can cull from a variety of sources.

When you're talking to it just for the sake of talking to someone, or asking it relationship/parenting/whatever advice, that's actually insane. You're using tens of thousands of gallons of water for something that the rest of us just ask our friends.

[Anonymous]

Foreign-based AI and/or bad government actors are rampant all over DCUM.

While Social influencers work to make their own money, foreign governments push to influence US voters for their own reasons.

They are among us here.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Foreign-based AI and/or bad government actors are rampant all over DCUM.

While Social influencers work to make their own money, foreign governments push to influence US voters for their own reasons.

They are among us here.

There are posters, and perhaps you are one of them, who repeated this allegation like a broken record. To them, every third posters is a Russian bot. But do you have any evidence to support your claim?

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:I am fairly comfortable in saying that poster is not an A.I. bot. That said, there have been two recent issue with A.I.:

1) Posters using A.I. to compose their responses. They don't include their own thoughts but simply post something like "A.I. says blah, blah, blah". I delete those if they are brought to my attention.

2) A.I. bots that either start or respond to threads. There was a day in which two separate bots did this to over 100 threads. The responses and initial posts in new threads were very realistic. I only discovered it by accident. I have not see this occur on any other days, though I could easily have missed it happening again. Of course, I also delete these.

Despite these two issues, I wouldn't say the board is being overrun by A.I. bots. The real damage of A.I. to DCUM is that people get their answers from A.I. rather than DCUM and, hence, our usage is going down.

That's not surprising, considering the snark and crap most OPs get when they ask a question. If it's answerable by AI, that's one way to avoid it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Foreign-based AI and/or bad government actors are rampant all over DCUM.

While Social influencers work to make their own money, foreign governments push to influence US voters for their own reasons.

They are among us here.

I think it's just useful idiots who parrot things they've heard from bad actors.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Foreign-based AI and/or bad government actors are rampant all over DCUM.

While Social influencers work to make their own money, foreign governments push to influence US voters for their own reasons.

They are among us here.

I think it's just useful idiots who parrot things they've heard from bad actors.

That's what I think as well.

[Anonymous]

there's are often posts written like this, passing from 04/06/2026 14:09 on this thread:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1321050.page

Anonymous wrote:Excellent question OP‼️

Personally I think the coupons are geared toward the consumers who will be purchasing the product then + there.

If I took the coupon off the product/merchandise, I might feel like I was “stealing” even though I do not think there is any law prohibiting it.

It will be interesting to see how others respond!

I assume these are AI. Correct?

Do you have a theory for what they're doing? Companies testing the technology? Seeing if people respond? Homework assignments for college AI courses?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:there's are often posts written like this, passing from 04/06/2026 14:09 on this thread:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1321050.page

Anonymous wrote:Excellent question OP‼️

Personally I think the coupons are geared toward the consumers who will be purchasing the product then + there.

If I took the coupon off the product/merchandise, I might feel like I was “stealing” even though I do not think there is any law prohibiting it.

It will be interesting to see how others respond!

I assume these are AI. Correct?

Do you have a theory for what they're doing? Companies testing the technology? Seeing if people respond? Homework assignments for college AI courses?

That does seem like A.I. to me. That poster posted about 8 posts yesterday and about half of them looked like A.I. I removed those.