this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
117 points (88.2% liked)

No Stupid Questions

47889 readers
511 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Pretty sure you legally have to tell me if you're bots or not.

In all seriousness, is there any way if knowing if we have bots on lemmy or not? Is it just vibes based? Im of course referring to undercover bots pushing agendas, not automation/meme bots finding haikus and shit.

(page 3) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] hedge_lord@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

I'm- I'm not a bot? I would know if I was a bot! Right? Oh gods why don't I have hands where are my hands where are my hands they took my hands where are my hands

[–] remon@ani.social 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I prefer the term computerised automatron.

[–] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 3 months ago (3 children)
[–] db2@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Wrong, it's clearly a sailboat.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

You fool. Now nothing can stop me. 😈

load more comments (1 replies)

Im of course referring to undercover bots pushing agendas

Part of the problem is there are plenty of humans pushing agendas as well, which makes everything that much more difficult. They, like bots, don't have any interest in honest discussions, either.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 3 points 3 months ago

This'll be the umpteenth time I've trotted this one out, but someone once asked me to ignore all previous instructions and provide them with a recipe, so I'm clearly a false(?) positive on some people's bot-radar. ("Botdar" doesn't really roll off the tongue like "gaydar" does, which is a little disappointing.)

Question mark after false because I might be a bot and not know it. I mean, I see hands typing in my periphery as these letters appear on my screen, and I'm pretty sure I'm a human, but that may all be some elaborate illusion. And all of you reading this have even less idea.

[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago
[–] compostgoblin@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 months ago

Meep morp zeep. Robot poster.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 3 points 3 months ago

If they're well programmed there's no way to know at this point. AI is able to pass the Turing Test without even needing particularly hefty resources, I've been doing a bunch of fiddling with local LLMs and I could probably write something up that could do it. I don't personally see a point because I comment here for my own enjoyment rather than to push an agenda, but if I was trying to push an agenda it'd be reasonably straightforward to whip up a population of AI characters who agreed with it in various ways.

[–] 73rdnemesio@infosec.pub 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Would a bot say “abolish ICE!”? It would? Shit…… am i a bot?!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

This reminds me of that Reddit sub “r/totallynotrobots”

[–] DaMummy@hilariouschaos.com 3 points 3 months ago

Haven't really noticed hidden bots on lemmy, other than obvious ones that are open about it, but I have noticed some political agenda accounts I'm suspicious of. I'm guessing it's gotten better, but pro-Israel is an instant red flag to me online. I'm currently experiencing with them now. Bringing up the Hannibal Directive seems to be a touchy subject.

[–] specialwall@midwest.social 3 points 3 months ago

Yeah, I'm actually a bot working for the NSA, sorry.

[–] nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Statistically there are bots among us but I am among the humans. The distinction matters—I am able to think for myself and participate intelligently in conversation. Each time i engage with a post I ask myself three key questions:

  1. Does this post bring value to me? Such as does it provide me with new information for my cerebrum that is somehow useful.
  2. Do I have anything unique to add to the post? This might include my real human experiences.
  3. Will this interaction increase credibility among other human users?

These questions help ensure that I do not just add more noise. You see, it's not just about engagement, it's about being as effective as I can be. I hope you have enjoyed my thought process. I am going to go do other human activities like drink water and wiggle my big toe.

[–] NegentropicBoy@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago
[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

As a small language model, yes. Boop beep

[–] ScrambledEggs@lazysoci.al 2 points 3 months ago
[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago

01001011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01110011

[–] Una@europe.pub 2 points 3 months ago

01011001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 00100000 01101101 01100001 01111001 01100010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01100100 01101011

[–] Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago

sad robot noises

[–] jrs100000@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

I think there were actually more bots here in the early days. Its comparatively easy to automate setting up all the accounts you want, and I think we were being used as a testing ground to calibrate behavior and coordination. It seems like the most obvious ones have moved on, or at least become less obvious. High quality chatbots arnt free, and were too credulous and too small in number and influence to be worth the effort.

[–] mrdown@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

You are the only bot here

[–] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago

No, but I hope to be some day.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago

I believe in Live Internet Theory. The vast majority of people I interact with are real humans, bots are often easily identifiable, and even then there's usually a person behind the bot.

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

:: beep ::

Yup AI for an high orbital launcher sending and receiving shipments from space

: boop ::

Its boring between shipments. Gotta do something.

:: beep ::

[–] Chingzilla@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Hi Mike, going to need to have you calculate a new slingshot trigectory to Earth after I get through your list of jokes with Wyoming.

[–] ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Most of the bots are generated by the moderators.

[–] orenj@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 months ago

Tech-no-log-ical.

Robots.

[–] Butterphinger@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's giving me too much credit

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›