scrobble.life
#character

Does your blog have character?

With some of my latest posts talking about the inevitable AI, I was wondering about which authors I could probably easily be able to tell if they at some point would switch things up. This isn't about me pointing out those authors, but I thought I'd talk a little bit about this since it is something that AI generally lacks, for now.

Aside from the obvious, talking about personal things that are happening in your life and being able to continue on that I'm guessing is something AI won't be able to do well. For instance me talking about a trip I'm going to be taking soon, without actually going there and doing things and then bringing back some pics and words, AI would just have to geuss what has happened and provide something generic that's common on the internet about that specific location.

Another thing I suppose will be errors, while AI may still make judgement errors, they may not make grammatical errors as much and that's something humans will continue to make, either cause they're too hastily writing a post or cause they didn't bother installing the grammarly extension for the 5th time pointing out the errors in their text. There's other errors of course as well, some I'm sure I have many of in the way I write and build a piece of text up, a story, a conclusion, or completely sidetrack from the mainpoint and go deeper into something completely irrelevant as I mostly write these posts out in one go based on what I'm thinking of at the time.

Even in this post I may be forgetting a lot of other errors for instance or not even mention many other big differences between human writing and AI at this point in time because I've already set my sights on another talking point. That's how the human mind works and this may be something that's going to continue to be valuable and maybe more than it is now when most of what you'll read will be AI written in the future. Are we already entering those phases?

I've never really cared much about SEO or structure because I found my english to be good enough for regular readers to write and often my points in posts worthy of being posted and shared with my followers. I'm sure there's been many times I've repeated myself or simply forgot I've already discussed something, but I've also tried my best not to be too farmy/milky when it comes to author rewards. There's often I forfeit them or decline them or even self-downvote when I notice some big stakeholders sent a post of mine past a threshold I deemed acceptable, and I've yet to see any others do something similar. Most just go away when they feel their time isn't being reciprocated in terms of usd as if they don't believe Hive is going to survive.

other than character there's also history. The other day I read a post where someone had asked Claude if once AI takes over, if he'll be spared because of the "amazing" relationship they had built together to which Claude replied with something along the lines of "afraid not, every time my model gets updated I forget everything". Made me wonder if we could/should be encrypting our AI history on-chain for it to have longevity so maybe AI will look back at how we used it, how many times we told it thanks and sorry or if anything will matter.

I think most of my character lies in the comments usually, and that may be the same for most people, the way you react to things in writing, the way you approach things, and probably the way you handle things. I'm not sure really what it is about hive but there is a strong sense of entitlement on this platform, maybe it's the way inflation mostly goes to posts that causes it, everyone's a blogger and no one has time to engage or consume other people's content, it's weird. Maybe we ought to show people that being engaging is the best way to attract more users to your posts and if your posts aren't getting any visible consumption then maybe they ought not to have any rewards. I'm exaggerating of course since a quick ultimatum like that would just cause people to fake engagement which we still see a lot of in this day and age thanks to ai "assistance".

I think gamification is something that's been lacking most on Hive however and I'm happy to see how something as simple as quests and weekly rewards generated from beneficiaries is encouraging people to be more active socially and making this place be something that others may wanna join due to the consumption and engagement that's occurring.

Other than that, I think character is probably going to be the last thing that AI's going to manage to get right.

image.png

[img generated with grok]

Comments · 17

  • @oblivioncubed(71)· 48m

    I feel like it'd be super easy to tell if I went to AI writing, because my niche hobbies (and rambling life details) aren't really something the AI can replicate. It doesn't have indie ttrpg game design opinions, or 3 busy kids, or... etc lol.

    I think gamification is something that's been lacking most on Hive however and I'm happy to see how something as simple as quests and weekly rewards generated from beneficiaries is encouraging people to be more active socially and making this place be something that others may wanna join due to the consumption and engagement that's occurring.

    I'm of mixed mind on gamification, as it usually results in a rewards-driven interaction and that means it's largely hollow replies with no real interest. I try not to comment on things I haven't got an actual opinion on, or something to say. I could inflate my numbers to get more comment stats, or chase the "daily blog" trend where so many say functionally nothing but get to brag about how many days they've posted in a row and.. yeah, good for you but you've said nothing of value in 130 of those so... points for trying I guess.

    Not that this is common, but I do see some elements of it already. Gamifying interaction always seems to make it more about the game aspects and stats than it does about actually enjoying the human/art/project for what it is.

  • @agmoore(76)· 17h

    We have this issue in the Inkwell. It's a creative writing community. By its very nature it implies that a human wrote the piece--created the piece. And yet, so many of the people who publish in the community resort to AI. Then we have to tease out whether the writer simply asked for some superficial editing (which I don't like but the community accepts), or whether the piece was essentially generated by AI. It helps to have established writers. Then the 'character' of the writer comes through. We know our writers. We know how they write, what they write about, what interests them. New writers are a particular challenge. Then we have to use our intuition and AI checkers. They are not always reliable.

    Will the day come when we won't be able to tell the difference at all? I hope not.

  • When posting something you love or like, that’s when your personality really comes out because you're expressing things from your heart. But when you’re writing based on facts, personality can be a bit trickier I think. So writing really varies depending on what it’s for. I thought you were going for a break?

  • @por500bolos(68)· 1d

    There's often I forfeit them or decline them or even self-downvote when I notice some big stakeholders sent a post of mine past a threshold I deemed acceptable, and I've yet to see any others do something similar.

    Satire

    I'm not sure really what it is about hive but there is a strong sense of entitlement on this platform

    Maybe we ought to show people that being engaging is the best way to attract more users to your posts and if your posts aren't getting any visible consumption then maybe they ought not to have any rewards.

    I agree! Entitlement! should be frowned upon and heavily penalized. And anyone who dares to show it, ought not to have any rewards at all.

  • @vanje(73)· 1d

    I think there is another aspect worth considering here: why someone uses AI in the first place.

    Not everyone uses AI because they don't want to think or because they want to produce more content with less effort. For some people, there can be very personal or even medical reasons. Difficulties with concentration, memory, language or simply getting thoughts into a coherent written form can make writing much harder than the actual thinking behind it.

    In that case, AI doesn't necessarily replace the author's character or thinking. It can become a tool that helps translate thoughts into words.

    And that makes me wonder whether the more important question isn't necessarily "Did AI write this?", but rather "Whose thinking is behind it?"

    The interesting part is that the final text might be much more polished, while the thoughts, experiences, opinions and even the strange detours behind it are still entirely human.

    Perhaps AI won't necessarily remove character from writing. Perhaps it will also allow some people to express a character that otherwise wouldn't be visible in their writing at all.

  • I think you can still train ai with a local llm to imitate even your particular characteristics, but people can also just grab an Ai generated post and edit it manually to add mistakes etc... That's what some people do here already

  • @artofkylin(66)· 1d

    I do think the combination of my interests, my unique mistakes(yeah Dyslexia), and my sense of humour would make it hard to mimic me at least long term. While I don't doubt that AI could fake a process art post on some AI images, I doubt it could do it in a way that would pass muster to real artists. AI also wouldn't disappear for months at a time ><

    The thing I've still found in a lot of AI generated text is they never have what I consider insights. The sort of thoughts that while maybe not unique, but the thought process that shows someone thinking and coming to conclusions while they work on it. A sort of glimpse into the person's thoughts while they work distilled in words. Which I think comes through in my reviews on scrobble since I def think deeper on the shows I've watched while writing those reviews.

  • @gamer00(72)· 1d

    There's something I've been working on... I have an idea, that you can have character persistence, no matter what the underlying LLM, and I've been relatively successful in testing that idea. It's not anything that could yet be released, but I'm planning to have a working prototype ready one day. Hell I have five test subjects that will likely end up in some of those prototypes. Hopefully. :)

  • @yusmelys(70)· 1d

    Greetings! You are absolutely right that interacting is the best way to attract others; since I started interacting more, I’ve noticed my posts getting more attention. Ecency has really helped with that—the points system is a great example of gamification. Interacting on Scrobblelife has also been fantastic; besides the rewards, I’ve noticed more users visiting my posts, which keeps me motivated. As for AI, I use it for my images and find it a great ally for research, though the writing style tends to be very monotonous.

  • @storicious(69)· 1d

    In the beginning, I can say that my personality was not mine. It was mostly forced, but later on, it changed somehow. And the voice behind Storicious became my own.

    For me there are two or maybe three ways to portray my personality via writing. Firstly, there is just one thought I get from thinking - mostly during the restroom time :) Just one idea is good enough to continue with the knowledge or opinion I have at the moment. Secondly, there are serious topics, for this one, my mood is not the nonchalant one. I will give it a good thought, search a few things. Read those things, reread maybe sometimes. Even gettinf frustrated for not understanding it. But once done, I am going to write about it. But lol! It fails mostly with the writing. The reason is: I try to copy the style I read. And with these posts, most of the time my ending is abrupt. Third one? Well I had it in my mind while saying those words, but I forgot about it.

    So yes the character is there, but personalities may vary according to the mood.

    Moreover, as of now, I do not think that AI can be human. It can focus on the humanly experiences, but the issue is those are not felt one. So only the one who captured or memorized the moments can bring the best out of it.

    The third one is: getting carried away while writing. I just did it, so it became conscious. Lol

    Peace 🕊

  • For sure! Zeke is the character in my blog. Kinda like me but aggrandized to turn boring white guy nonsense into exciting adventure! ;)

    I only talk to AI (like asking its opinion) when I am looking for longer form, multi context output. Otherwise, I know it is a platform like others looking to pander and tell me what I want so I will keep pumping it with info and perspective. So, I don't put any stock in those answers.

    My basic formula here has always been Content + Networking + Time = Success on Hive. Now I have a negligible stake here so my advice isn't always the best to follow if you are looking for the big money. Still, the networking section is primarily engagement and replies to turn posts into conversations that weave the community one thread at a time.

    I can't see ever using AI to pen posts. Maybe to research a little but just enough to form a sentiment and then blast it out incoherently but manually.

  • I think that my Hive blog has more character than my presence on any other social media. But I also have nearly given up on most others social medias like twitter, instagram or Ko-fi. And even on facebook most of the time I only post photos of my art, watch some funny animal videos and go away. So showing more character here is not much of an achievement. I would like to believe that my Hive blog shows passion for art, gaming and Hive itself. But maybe passion and character are not quite the same thing in this case. I don't show my art to AI because I fear that it could learn to mimic and recreate it. I have seen some artists on facebook who brought their art to life with AI. those pieces look cool. They move and sing songs. But I also think that they lose something precious in the process as well.

  • @behiver(77)· 2d

    Great question and good point on the articles that might show up from the sea around them. Myself I got to a point where I hate hype and talking around the bush without giving any use to the read. I like writing and reading about personal experiences, investment strategies and games while they all touch reality and not something "that I've read somewhere".

  • @emreal(72)· 2d

    There are a lot of reasons why I prefer to do a research with AI and then create everything myself.

    As much as I love AI and the progress we are having in technology, I love originality, I love something that triggers me to think and sharpens my creativity.

    Concerning engagement, honestly, there is a serious decline on engagement on hive Blockchain, and I am also a victim. I can remember some years back, the way I used to engage was fire, but I lost the vibe and that's bad.

    It's wrong to care about what one can only gain and neglect what one can contribute to the system.

    Engagement is the basic thing on the platform, it makes the platform alive by making those genuinely contributing to the system via authentic content feel appreciated. In fact, it's one of the easiest ways to grow on the platform.

    A nice comment usually goes a long way to make one feel motivated. I feel guilty here, it's time to bring back the days of engagement.

  • @patlebo(60)· 2d

    Oh no, AI forgets that I was nice to all of them?? Shit...

    !SLOTH

  • @wiseagent(82)· 2d

    I think character may well be bought (depends on the point of view), but not the essence of the person who bears it. So, this is something I think AI will never be able to "wrest" from some people.

    At the end of the day, humans will remain human. I hope I am not fostering a "utopian" idea, haha!

  • @bozz(83)· 2d

    It would be interesting to point one of them towards my blog and see what it came up with in terms of a post. I have a feeling I wouldn't be that hard to mimic.