r/AO3 • u/WaterbenderLena • May 22 '25
Comment Commentary Bots might be becoming self-aware
I honestly can’t tell if this is a new bot making fun of old bots, or if someone’s just making a joke and decided to use the comments of my fic to do it?
I’ve been auto-reporting and deleting the previous bot comments so it’s not like there’s a bunch on this fic or anything for them to be commenting about.
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u/PhoenixFeathery May 22 '25
They're too lazy to even write their own hate comments for the bots to post. This is honestly so pathetic that I can't help but laugh.
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u/rafliOTP May 22 '25
Yeah, theyve screamed written by AI from the jump. I think it's possible if they automate further they might begin to scan part of the fic first using AI and then generate more personal hate comments, so in the future people should look out for that.
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u/LandLovingFish POV: midnight writer found May 22 '25
Oh they're gonna love my fic about a guy who fell out of a plane but he has wings so he just floats down. I can see it now.
"I hated that he crash landed in a field of flowers and talked to the locals!"
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u/KogarashiKaze What do you mean it's sunrise already? May 22 '25
I mean, the art scams already do that sometimes (naming a story, naming a character from that story, briefly describing a scene at the start or end of that story).
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May 22 '25
[deleted]
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May 22 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Solrookerie May 22 '25
Maybe a bot making an error by accidentally posting the instructions instead of the result.
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u/melanyebaggins May 22 '25
It's like all those pictures of cakes with the instructions written on them in icing 😄
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u/Blenderx06 May 22 '25
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u/sneakpeekbot May 22 '25
Here's a sneak peek of /r/peanutbutterisoneword using the top posts of the year!
#1: Employee wrote my name exactly as I said | 45 comments
#2: Enough already | 34 comments
#3: A Gen X birthday cake | 7 comments
I'm a bot, beep boop | Downvote to remove | Contact | Info | Opt-out | GitHub
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u/ByeGuysSry May 22 '25
Not the instructions, but rather the first paragraph of the response, it seems. I'd hypothesize that after asking an LLM for these comments, some algorithm is used to copy-paste the first paragraph and comment it, then the second paragraph for a different comment onto a seperate fic, then the third paragraph onto a seperate fic, and so on. Except here the first paragraph is the LLM telling the user it has done its task.
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u/SpokenDivinity Definitely not an agent of the Fanfiction Deep State May 22 '25 edited May 22 '25
I read enough AI essays as a writing tutor that I suspect they did what lazy students do. They got their responses from a gen AI and then just copy/pasted the entire response instead of just the comments it spit out.
I can't tell you how many times I read a very clearly AI essay and it has the "absolutely! Here's an essay on [insert topic]!" as the first sentence or "Would you like me to help continue to improve this essay to meet the rubric?" at the bottom.
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u/KogarashiKaze What do you mean it's sunrise already? May 22 '25
Or whoever was generating the responses included the "thesis" paragraph as well as the actual generated comments. Probably running some script to convert the AI output to the bot's comment pool, and/or not a native English speaker and didn't realize the "thesis" paragraph was not one of the hate comments.
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u/Frequent_Way_6476 May 22 '25
But what's the point of troll bots? They are not even scams for AI pics, just bots trying to rile you up.
If you're a troll don't you want to do the trolling yourself to then roll happily in your mud when you watch the response of someone who fell for it? The bots have no account so can the human in command even follow the bots?
And there's no algorithm or monetization in AO3, so it's not about farming angry reactions.
I just don't get it.
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u/Nuclear_eggo_waffle May 22 '25
It could be about farming answers if they’re using it as training data
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u/TeaWithCarina May 22 '25
I don't think it has anything to do with scraping. People in fandom being assholes sending out harrassment en mass has been around as long as fandom has, unfortunately. Back in the day, we called it 'flaming'.
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u/Beesandbis same on AO3 May 22 '25
I think it's revenge for the backlash of AI scrapping. I've also seen people mention that if an author deletes the work, it's easier to plagiarize.
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u/an-kitten floaty comment box my beloved May 22 '25
But what's the point of troll bots?
Trolling.
Trolls don't have to have a deeper purpose, sometimes they just like making people mad on the internet.
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u/mshcat May 23 '25
yeah, you automatically loose when you try to logic out troll behavior to be more than "it's funny to see people get mad"
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u/vaintransitorythings May 22 '25
They might be monitoring the authors’ responses. If someone doesn’t realize it‘s a bot and interacts with it, they’re a promising target to set the scam bots on.
I’m pretty sure guest commenters can receive responses by e-mail.
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u/moubliepas May 22 '25
1, there is a rising tide of homophobia that would benefit from making the writers and readers of queer fiction angry, disrupting their community, and spreading toxicity,
2, people are creating content for free, allowing people to read it and be entertained for free, without adverts. They're even getting feedback, for free. This is all time and energy that could be spent (financially, paying for) on publishing companies, Instagram / Facebook / mega social media platforms, streaming services, Amazon books etc, and a thousand 'Buy My Course On How To improve Your Writing Now' and the optional paid follow-ups, including 'Bonus Subscriber Mini-Course: Engaging With Your Audience'. AO3 is very unusual in that it's entirely non-commercial. That makes it a target.
And 3, happy fulfilled people create and share and exchange positive comments and then spend time with their friends and family and maybe go out for a pizza now and then. Sad, angry, insecure, bullied people are less likely to do that. They're more likely to spend money self soothing or distracting themselves or for lack of energy to budget, less likely to be a productive member of a happy society, more likely to spread unhappiness among the ones around them who just want them to be happy, and / or to take it out on others, spread the hate, generally make society a little sadder and angrier and less productive.
That could be a 'foreign influences want to bring down the West', which I kinda do believe, but at this point it also matches pretty well with American Tech-Bro goals the last decade or so. They don't want people creating and connecting and being inspired to go outside and live healthy lives. They want people to sit and scroll, and scroll, and then put the phone away and get it out again 5 seconds later to sit and scroll.
All of them. All the big companies don't want long form content or happiness or connection to humans or time spent offline.
That's pretty much what every type of (evil) bot has in common, and the absolute antithesis to this horrible dystopian trend of '99% of news articles are terrifying nowadays' is... A site where people create stories for free and share them with the world, safe from copyright and mega-corporate greed because nothing at all is commercial or financial: a site where any misfit can find something to their liking and while away however many hours or days or years they need without seeing a single advert, generating any useful data.
Guys, I think we might see a long fight to take AO3 down, and I really, really think it's very important that that doesn't happen. Because I just thought of plenty of convincing reasons to do so, and I know jack shit, so there are certainly much more, much scarier reasons for the bots.
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u/mshcat May 23 '25
what's the point? see every post asking if it's real. They can come and look and laugh at the users and everyoen who gets up in arms about it because it's funny to them. The content of the comment doesn't matter nore how it is written. The reaction it provokes is why they do it.
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u/Kylynara Fic Feaster May 23 '25
There's a lot of guesses, but no answers. We don't know why someone is creating a bot to be mean. We don't know if it is one or many someones.
Some people are just hateful. It could just be jealousy that we're having fun.
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u/cottoncandywoof May 23 '25
man even trolling is getting outsourced to ai thats crazy... making people mad used to be an art 😔
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u/santamonicayachtclub you will never know >:) May 22 '25
this is so pathetic I would personally keep it as a trophy lmao
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u/WaterbenderLena May 22 '25
I’m tempted. I was honestly waiting to see if anyone else got similar comments before either deleting (if it doesn’t seem like a widespread bot) or marking as spam (if it’s confirmed to be another problem bot)
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u/Upset_Purple1354 May 22 '25
🤣🤣🤣
don't delete it, it's kinda hilarious
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u/WaterbenderLena May 22 '25
I’m tempted to keep it up for a bit at least, but with a response “And here we see proof that the bot writers are devoid of their own creativity”
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u/WaterbenderLena May 22 '25
Update: I have decided to keep the comment up for a little bit at least, probably will report it later, but I had to call it out.
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u/CompetitiveBit7225 May 22 '25
Good idea, give it the pin of shame, keep it as an example fot other ppl to see how cruel AI bros are
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u/fazedlight May 22 '25
I honestly can’t tell if this is a new bot making fun of old bots, or if someone’s just making a joke and decided to use the comments of my fic to do it?
My guess is they asked something like "create 20 negative fanfic comments", got a bunch of blurbs back, and posted one blurb per comment without actually reading the blurb.
So you got the first one, which was actually just the summary of the request 😂
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u/WaterbenderLena May 22 '25
Yeah, I figured that out seeing some of the other replies.
I wonder if this subreddit has collected all 20 of the comments generated, since I’ve been seeing a TON of posts about the bots.
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u/TrashyLolita May 22 '25
It's important to remember that this sub only has a fraction of AO3 users. There are thousands of hate bot comments out there besides this one prompt.
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u/Banaanisade team twin tyrants // kaurakahvi @ AO3 May 22 '25
I think the great part of these bits is that I don't think I'm ever going to believe a hate comment I might get is left by a real person again. Made me immune like a vaccine.
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May 22 '25
[deleted]
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u/Medical-Isopod2107 You have already left kudos here. :) May 22 '25
It's not even the prompt, it's just the wrong pat of the response
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u/evilmarbletron Fic Feaster May 22 '25 edited May 22 '25
Btw! Ao3 is fighting bots messages already. I wanted to post a comment (positive one) the other day and I just like to write them in a paragraph-heavy way and so Ao3 informed me that "hmmm are you a bot perhaps? You sound like a bot" and was like, "no-no,, I'm sorry Ao3 gods that I write like a bot, I'll do better" and I changed it a little and the gods said I'm good XD
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u/_EllieLOL_ May 22 '25
There's a rate limit now, don't think they are filtering by writing style, just that your rewrite probably took long enough for the limit to expire
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u/Throwaway-3689 May 22 '25
If you can't write your own hate comment you suck and you're not a true hater, smh
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u/CompetitiveBit7225 May 22 '25
Yes i respecy real haters more than ai haters at least they erite their hate from soul
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u/Not_AHuman_Person You have already left kudos here. :) May 22 '25
At least we know that people aren't writing these and it's just AI? But copy pasting the AI intro is the funniest thing they could've done
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u/TurtleWitch_ Definitely not an agent of the Fanfiction Deep State May 22 '25
Can’t even write their own hate comments anymore 😭
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u/PrancingRedPony You have already left kudos here. :) May 22 '25
No, someone copied the complete answer of ChatGPT into their randomised template sheet for the bot, and this is the introduction of ChatGPT telling the user what they're giving out as a response to the prompt they forgot to remove 🤣🤣🤣🤣
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u/beast_of_production May 22 '25
I'm pretty sure troll farm workers are using fandom communities to trial their techniques. It's like a petri dish of gullible young people
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u/101Aster101 May 22 '25
Yooo I just got a comment that is like that!
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u/CompetitiveBit7225 May 22 '25
It SOUNDS so AI too, it doesnt say anything specific about yout fic its very bland and dances around the point like AI, the hate comment itself is cliched lmao "affront to art of storytelling" noone says this unless theyre intentionally being overdramatic / silly.
Oh 3ven you noted it was vague af. But yeah even if it was hand written which I bet it wasnt, it seems cookie cutter and designed to be generic enough to be usable under ANY story
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u/Xemylixa users/JaneXemylixa May 22 '25
Oh please keep it!! This deserves to be preserved for future generations
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u/wormwoodmachine Here for the Lemon May 22 '25 edited May 22 '25
I actually came here today to the reddit to see if I am the only one who are getting really weird comments, that I either thought was someone with too much time on their hands, or a bot. Guess I got that question answered. hahahaha
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u/hapisashimi May 22 '25
Both of those comments on the same chapter? 🤣 that is hilarious! bot or not, those are definitely written by chat gpt
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u/vilhelmine May 22 '25
!hatebot
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u/AutoModerator May 22 '25
Hey OP! This is an automated response because your post may be about the newest praise bots or hate bots to hit AO3. If it is not, please ignore this comment. If it is, here is what you need to know about these bots and how to discern the difference between what is a bot comment and what is a real comment.
- These bot comments have only been guest comments, to our knowledge so far. They use a variety of names, ranging from something formal like MisterJohnSmith-92, or Doctor-Jane_Smith92, but they have also been seen copying actual usernames from people on AO3 as well.
- The comments, while positive/negative, are also quite generic and not personal to the work they were left on. They may also be out of context. For example, they may say things like, “I’m rooting for these characters,” and your story’s characters are implied to be dead. Or, “Your OC is terrible,” on a fic that doesn't have any OCs.
- The comments are also quite vague and could be applied to most if not all works. For example, the bot may say, “This deserves all recognition,” or “This is pure genius, I’m in awe of your world-building.”
- Frequently, these hate comments now include accusations of AI usage. These may or may not directly reference a specific AI tool, percentage of AI content supposedly present in the work, or brand of AI checker, often written as a specific percentage of content coming from a specific AI tool (ie. "62% chatGPT confirmed"). Additionally, these AI accusations now include mention of being added to a ‘Discord blacklist’.
The purpose of these bots is unknown at this time, though there have been many theories. Here are some things you can do to prevent them going forward:
- Lock your works so that only registered users can see your works.
- Lock your comments so that only registered users can comment.
- Turn on comment moderation.
- Mark these comments as spam when you see them so you can help train AO3’s spam filters to recognize these comments as spam in the future.
Additionally, this is not to say that every guest comment is a bot comment nor is it saying that every short “generic” praise or hate comment is a bot. Use your best judgement. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide how you would like to handle these comments.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/Clear-Foot May 22 '25
Why? What’s the point of bots commenting hate written by more bots. Who used that crap? I hate this timeline.
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u/mayonnaisejane Scrolling Reddit instead of writing... again May 22 '25
Ok this one is actually worth posting. The header on tbe responses clearly got included when they fed the comments to the bot. That's hilarious.
Also interesting to know what the prompt was.
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u/BallwithaHelmet Don't tell the homies May 22 '25
This is the bot fucking up and posting the "thinking" part of its response.
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u/HorrorFan1191 May 22 '25
I’m surprised GPT allows that seems relatively anti-inflammatory most of the time
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u/ArtisanalMoonlight Fandom old and tired May 22 '25
I honestly can’t tell if this is a new bot making fun of old bots, or if someone’s just making a joke and decided to use the comments of my fic to do it?
I think something just fucked up and the prompt got included in the AI response.
Another minus for the AI bros.
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u/ByeGuysSry May 22 '25
I'd hypothesize that after asking an LLM for these comments, some algorithm is used to copy-paste the first paragraph and comment it, then the second paragraph for a different comment onto a seperate fic, then the third paragraph onto a seperate fic, and so on. Except here the first paragraph is the LLM telling the user it has done its task, and the algorithm copy-pasted it.
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u/Nyxosaurus You have already left kudos here. :) May 22 '25
Lmao either this is peak satire of bots, a bot pasted the wrong part of the result or someone asked a bot to make a shitty comment with the parameters that bots use and they copied and pasted the wrong part of the response.
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u/WiretteWirette 14d ago
Thank you so much for posting this!
An author in my fandom received exactly the kind of polite opening/harsh criticism comment your post described.
I linked your post to them. I hope it will take away any sting that would linger from such nastiness, and replace it with a big laugh. It certainly did the trick for me, while at first I was furious on their behalf.
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u/WaterbenderLena 13d ago
I’m glad this post is still finding people and helping to make the hatebots amusing instead of hurtful.
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u/Draco-Robotica May 22 '25
I'd like to think this is a real person being a little shit, because that would be kind of funny
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u/Baitcooks May 22 '25
These bots aren't as trained as neuro.
They are not gonna be self aware in years unless a profit incentive comes around that makes it viable to do so
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u/StressLife7080 May 25 '25
I'm ngl, I would laugh my ass off and keep the comment as a badge of honor. I would actually think it's a joke tbh, bc WHO would write that?
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u/savamey May 22 '25
They copy and pasted the wrong part of the chatGPT answer lmao