Ask HN: Does anyone care enough about bots to switch social networks?

2 points by Chirpper 14 days ago | 7 comments

I built a content aggregator / discussion platform where being human isn't a policy, it's structural. Invite chains mean your reputation is mathematically tied to who you vouch for. Inviting a bot destroys your own standing. Discovering one bot farm wipes the entire downstream network in a single action — making it economically unviable to operate one here at any scale.

My honest suspicion is that nobody really cares enough to actually switch platforms over this, despite all the daily complaints of talking to bots on current content aggregators.

Long story short... Trying to find out if people really care enough, before I go further than the beta site I've already built.

Happy to send invites to anyone who wants to poke at it.

scottgal 14 days ago |

It sounds like a social network that kind of punishes participation...why would you recommend anyone if it could damage your reputation. The social contract that's supposed to underly social networks does this anyway; someone who retweets / toots bots gets a bad reputation adn loses followers. It's just the bots got really good at spoofing the social graph too...an llm can gain reputation by recommending humans just like humans can.

Chirpper 14 days ago | |

Well you definitely understand it at least. But here's the rebuttal...

The same logic applies to hiring someone, or vouching for a colleague, friction creates care. You only invite people you actually trust.

So I'd say, that's the point, not the problem.

asdfbank 14 days ago |

I agree that nobody cares enough. When was the last time you read anything good or promising about any of these sites - bot related or otherwise? but they persist because of a snowball of your network using it and then we feel fomo.

The only way to win is not to play. even if your kid's soccer team and your church and your suburb's news (and billions of bots) are all only on fb or whatever, stop their momentum and get off the ride, but obviously that isnt happening so the snowball continues to roll with the garbage in it and nobody cares and that's just how it is now.

Wow i read that back and it's super negative..

Chirpper 14 days ago | |

Honestly you might be the exact person this is built for. You've clearly already mentally checked out of the existing platforms. "The only way to win is not to play" says it all.

It's okay to be negative, we're talking about a major commitment that I really need to believe in, and I'd rather get the truth before I commit to that than to have false hope.

PaulHoule 14 days ago |

Hate to say it but when I talk w/ Microsoft Copilot I hear a lot of talk like

   ... being human isn't a policy, it's structural

Chirpper 14 days ago | |

Okay? I mean, if you say so. All I hear from those companies is how much we need more bots, but I don't use Microsoft - anything - so maybe we just have different worlds :)

PaulHoule 13 days ago | | |

Microsoft Copilot is mostly a wrapper for ChatGPT so it uses most of the same tropes. Heck, I think they all use the same tropes because those vultures get training data from their competitors.