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[Richard230]

A post today by the BMW F800Rider's forum says that they have installed a new AI "assistant". This "assistant" is described as follows by the forum administrator: we’ll be launching an AI Community Assistant called ForaFrank. Here’s what ForaFrank does:  Reply to threads that haven’t received a response within 72 hours, particularly those from new users or in niche areas that may not get much traction, or in member introduction sections, to help welcome new members. Focus on older, previously high-traffic threads that meet specific quality and visibility criteria.

I can see AI "assistants" to potentially be a new trend on just about every type of enthusiast forum. Where will we see AI next?   

[Stonewolf]

I'm glad our administrators are AWOL in that case.

[Specter]

Stone, you have no idea how that AI mindless bullshit ruins a forum, worse is the clowns who blindly believe every piece of garbage that ai throws at them.

note, if a topic has died down, there is a reason for that, it does NOT need revival.  If it does it'll happen naturally.  oh good lord who thought that would be a good idea?

Aaron

[Stonewolf]

Oh no, I do, that's why I'm glad our admins aren't around to add it.

[Richard230]

What? You don't think a chat bot will be your forum friend to keep you entertained when you are not getting enough attention from other forum members? 

[CagivaRider]

Richard - We are both on the F800 forum. I wonder what effect it will have on our day-to-day threads. Time will tell.

[Richard230]

Richard - We are both on the F800 forum. I wonder what effect it will have on our day-to-day threads. Time will tell.

My guess is that we won't even hear much from ForaFrank. If I understand how it functions, it will wait 72 hours after a post from a new member before getting involved in the conversation if he (or she) doesn't receive a response. How often does it take for a new member to receive a welcome from members of the community? The chance of that happening is just about zero.    But maybe it will get lonely if it doesn't get an opportunity to become active and jump into the forum, anyway?   

In any case, this appears to be a trend of all sorts of companies jumping on the AI bandwagon. But is that bandwagon going anywhere useful, especially when it is on an internet enthusiast forum. 

[Specter]

So, your forum is active and your new members are greeted pretty promptly, that's good.  In fact it's SO good that one has to ask, why the need for a bot to do that then.  Just more clutter and junk to go wrong from an admin pov.

you do have a valid concern though that the bot will get lonely.  Heyy.... Don't forget about MEEEEeeeeeee.  I'll post something so im not forgotten about, and if you don't respond, ill go do so in another thread, until someone does start playing Chatty Kathy with me.  It will do so under the guise of 'stirring up conversation'.

i wonder if they'll allow you to add it to your ignore list or not?  THAT's a huge tell right there too.

Aaron

[Richard230]

I guess time will tell. It will be interesting to see if the AI chatbot gets lonely and shows up uninvited. 

[Motoproponent]

I already hate the way AI Chatbots are creating posts on social media groups to spark conversations. They throw a question out there and people respond as if it were a member being genuinely curious.

AI slop to drive engagement is the absolute worst. Glad its absent here.

for now

[Specter]

Moto, unfortunately there is a lot of monetary reasons behind that bullshit too.
Hey, my site gets  xxx k clicks a day, it's POPULAR, and they are real people too !!  even if it's people telling the bot to go fuck itself.
this makes the site look bigger, better, more important, more popular bla bla,  ie worth more money, and raises it to the higher tiers in search enges and other heavily manipulatable entities like that.

now i can sell advertising space for more.
now i can GET more for the garbage 3rd party advertising i have on my site, especially for those horrific cpm models.

the admins are not doing this to genuinely improve the site ( for who ?)  they are doing it because someone sold them on the bs that it will bring more income into the site and make them rich, quickly, with zero effort, make money at home, sitting around doing nothing, i made 34,2543 last week alone...... vomit puke gasp.

these bots also have access to the back end, so they get to see the info about you, where you lurk, what you have, what you like, that they can then sell.  i don't need to see the cookies on your machine that you so closely guard, i can see everything thru your ip.  no your vpn does not keep you hidden, you do stupid shit all the time that outs yourself and lets me tie A with B to link you.

let me expire everyones password, so now you have to give me an e mail to log back in with, that's where ill send you the link to reactivate you... now i got a live e mail to tie into you with, i can pull a lot of header data off that too.  oh you sent it from an android xx,  thru verizon server in central florida, hmm, what have we got down there to market to you...

swallow this poison,    don't worry i have a pill to cure you....  TRUST ME it's for your own good.

Aaron

[Richard230]

ForaFrank popped up on the BMW forum yesterday to answer a question that already had one reply from a real human. This was its first post after it had introduced itself a couple of days ago. Hopefully it will be its last, but I am not betting on it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Specter was right that the chatbot was introduced to the forum by the site owner, who also owns several other enthusiast forums, to generate additional clicks. 

[Motoproponent]

The other forum I frequent, Bay Area Riders Forum, Is owned and moderated by legit enthusiasts. Also refreshing for the lack of AI agents posting.

There was a time here when chat bots were posting as members and I'm glad we collectively ignored them enough for them to move on to greener pastures. It would be nice if EMF had enough traffic and sponsors to pay the mods (like BARF does) to have them be accessible and engaged, but I'm happy to have this little AI resistant corner of the internet that I can check in with to talk E-motos.

[Richard230]

ForaFrank has been promoted to a "Super Moderator" by the site owner, but so far I haven't see it do much moderating of spam posts. 

On the Royal Enfield forum, someone just posted that Frank has been introduced to a Yamaha forum that he frequents. So ForaFrank seems to be getting around.  Maybe he works cheap?