This 'social media' app full of bots constantly complimenting you is intensely bizarre

guest · Feb 12, 2020

This 'social media' app full of bots constantly complimenting you is intensely bizarre
A new app known as “Botnet” simulates a social network where only one actual human exists: You.
February 12, 2020
https://mashable.com/article/botnet-social-media-app/

My first post on Botnet got over 480,000 likes.

A new social media-style app offers users the chance to live in a world where millions of adoring followers hang onto their every word. There's just one catch: On Botnet it just so happens that you're the only real person. Oh yeah, and you'd better believe you're famous as hell.
The app, released yesterday, is like a Twitter clone that dispensed with the notion that bots can or should be removed from the platform.

"Botnet is a social network simulator where you're the only human along with a million bots who are obsessed with you," explains the app's website.
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Made by Billy Chasen of turntable.fm fame, Botnet allows anyone bored or curious enough to download it a constant stream of interaction from fake accounts.

"This started as a fun thought experiment around how we can use bots for good (considering all the negative uses lately)," Chasen told Mashable over email. "What if there are always people to talk to and share opinions with? Maybe the world would feel less lonely (albeit simulated)."
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Be an influencer on this app, where a million bots are designed to hype you up

For those seeking a more realistic experience, Botnet even offers paid features that bring computer-generated trolls into the mix as well as a “Dad bot” to drop dad jokes on your posts.
If a million bots aren’t enough for you, the app also lets users pay 99 cents to double the number of likes and comments they receive on posts.
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guest · Mar 1, 2020

Welcome to Botnet, Where Everyone’s an Influencer
March 1, 2020
https://www.wired.com/story/botnet-social-network-where-everyones-influencer/

Botnet is designed to simulate the experience of mega-fame on the internet,
Every post on Botnet receives hundreds of thousands of likes, no matter how banal the subject matter. And they are, almost exclusively, kind and congratulatory.

Botnet has 20,000 human users so far, Chasen says, and about 600 of them have sprung for the extra features. The troll bots are by far the most popular.
I turned on the troll bots and posted a selfie, bracing myself for the worst of the internet. But the bots were still overwhelmingly admiring; the only exception was one bot who called me a “[***].”
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Chasen built the network using an OpenAI model for natural language called GPT-2. It can generate text in a way that OpenAI calls “chameleon-like—it adapts to the style and content of the conditioning text.”
It’s fun to see what the bots say both when their comments sound perfectly human and when they go totally off the rails. And it’s undeniably satisfying to watch the likes and comments roll in, fake though they are.

Botnet’s privacy policy says it does not collect personal information or share your posts, which Chasen hopes will encourage people to tell their bot fans whatever they feel like. “Maybe this is one place you can vent, you can be yourself,” he says. “The bots won’t judge you.”
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