A.I. Mopologetics

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Kishkumen
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A.I. Mopologetics

Post by Kishkumen »

We have seen it already here on DM. A.I. Mopologetics. A new poster appears spouting apologetics that look like they were generated by a chatbot. Interesting stuff, but also potentially time-wasting and annoying. We communicate partly to persuade, so what is to be gained by communicating with a computer if persuasion is the goal?

Although Coffee with Kish was not started with the goal of persuading, per se, I entered into it hoping to connect with people who just found Mormonism interesting without the drama of arguments for and against it. It looked like it was attracting some attention of that kind, although the comments section taught me just how hard it is to overcome the tendency to attract critical and apologetic discourses.

Then there was Jared Rosengren, a kid who seemed to "get it." Jared claimed to be a recently returned missionary who was "deconstructing his faith." He followed CWK faithfully and commented on most if not all of the videos. Given the nature of YouTube interactions, I took Jared at face value. Here is a nice kid who wants to discuss Mormonism without the noise of pro and con, I thought. Soon Jared was offering to help me with my graphics and asking how to get onto this board. I was not of a mind to take advantage of Jared's offer, as I was finding it tough to keep up with the channel, but I did follow through on helping him get signed up here.

It was his difficulty getting onto DM that started to cause suspicion. I gave him an email address to get the right information to the mods, but things went nowhere. Zilch. And in the process a worrisome repetitiveness cropped up in the communications. The thought of A.I. did cross my mind, but I also thought it might be possible Jared was doing a cut and paste for communications where he thought his message may not have cut through the background noise the first time.

In the midst of the process, I found Jared on Facebook. (So, yes, I was just suspicious enough to check into who this person might be.) Dude looked exactly like the chipper, optimistic return missionary type the interactions suggested. Account has 346 friends. Some of whom are family with the same last name and obviously real accounts with personal posts about their lives and struggles. A brother who is having trouble holding down a job and moving around a lot, for example.

Oddly, the friend request sat without a response for weeks. Then, just the other day, I get a Facebook message from Jared, who has accepted my friend request. "Cool," I thought. Everything was settled. Jared was signed up to DM and we were also Facebook friends. It seemed like a decent resolution to the requests of a chipper, decent young person who was interested in checking us out here. His first message to me read as follows:
Jared Rosengren wrote:Hello Kish! I’m glad you could find me on Facebook! I’m enjoying your posts! I’m guessing you’ve taken a break from YouTube because of all the politics.
Note that the friend request from my personal Facebook account under my in real life name.

I answered with some pleasantries, and then a day later I get this message in reply:
Jared Rosengren wrote:Hello Kish! I’m glad you were able to find me on Facebook! I’ve enjoyed your posts! I’m guessing with all the politics going on it will be a bit before we see another episode of Coffee with Kish.
Boom! I was in stitches. Aw, man! I am totally dealing with some A.I. bot. Jared's Facebook account really threw me off. Took me in. I do notice that the last time he posted on Facebook was June 27, 2024 with pictures of his temple wedding. Maybe the account was hijacked to create A.I. bot Jared? A.I. bot Jared was loosed onto the world of online Mormon geekdom to do what exactly? Collect personal information on people in that discussion?

I am not exactly sure what is going on, but I would love to know. I will admit that I am not sure this has anything directly to do with Mopologetics, except in terms of intelligence gathering. Who exactly is doing the gathering and for what purpose remains uncertain to me. But, wow, did I ever learn about how unreal and futuristic the cyber landscape has become. What all is going on beneath the surface?

As a final note, I unfriended "Jared Rosengren" after leaving a laugh emoji on his second message. This morning I got a friend request from "Jared Rosengren." :lol:
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Shulem
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Re: A.I. Mopologetics

Post by Shulem »

Well, at least you know there are real people here you can communicate with and perhaps even count on from time to time.

PS. I'm right and you're wrong.

:lol:
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Kishkumen
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Re: A.I. Mopologetics

Post by Kishkumen »

Shulem wrote:
Tue Jan 28, 2025 5:29 pm
Well, at least you know there are real people here you can communicate with and perhaps even count on from time to time.

PS. I'm right and you're wrong.

:lol:
Thanks, Shulem. I appreciate that, ribbing and all.
drumdude
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Re: A.I. Mopologetics

Post by drumdude »

I would be kind of creeped out by that. How bizarre.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m already feeling a bit burned out by A.I..
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Physics Guy
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Re: A.I. Mopologetics

Post by Physics Guy »

Yippie A.I.,
Yippie oh no.
Ghost writer is this guy.

(Maybe we can fill in some verses. I’m afraid I have nothing more constructive to offer here.)
I was a teenager before it was cool.
huckelberry
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Re: A.I. Mopologetics

Post by huckelberry »

Physics Guy wrote:
Tue Jan 28, 2025 10:53 pm
Yippie A.I.,
Yippie oh no.
Ghost writer is this guy.

(Maybe we can fill in some verses. I’m afraid I have nothing more constructive to offer here.)
The words, "in the sky" are made to appear without writing those words. A pretty simple trick, I wonder if A.I. can do that. Well it has this example for instruction I guess.
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Re: A.I. Mopologetics

Post by Philo Sofee »

I have used A.I. in the past to help me work through some math problems and ideas like that. it appears quite useful that way at least. But yeah, in the UFO community we get lots of bots. Whoever is in charge really REALLY does not want us believing or finding UFOs......weird.
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Kishkumen
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Re: A.I. Mopologetics

Post by Kishkumen »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:44 pm
I have used A.I. in the past to help me work through some math problems and ideas like that. it appears quite useful that way at least. But yeah, in the UFO community we get lots of bots. Whoever is in charge really REALLY does not want us believing or finding UFOs......weird.
Weird indeed! I didn’t get the feeling that this particular bot was intended to oppose me so much as perhaps gather information or connect the dots of my digital life for someone else. Maybe it was just an experiment!
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Kishkumen
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Re: A.I. Mopologetics

Post by Kishkumen »

By the way, I reported the Facebook account as a fake. We’ll see whether it gets pulled or someone will make the effort of defending it.
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Dr Moore
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Re: A.I. Mopologetics

Post by Dr Moore »

You can automate things like that with agentic A.I. tools now. Pretty crazy what's possible.

One could just as easily set up an agent to read every new Sic et Non post and formulate a relevant comment which is tuned to various degrees of agreement/disagreement, sarcasm, humor, intelligence, and even additive in terms of offering corrections or useful historical analogies to improve the post. What a time to be alive!
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