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nitwit005today at 6:08 AM1 replyview on HN

I'm not aware of anyone bothering to create bots that can pass the checking particular subreddits do. It'd be fairly involved to do so.

For licensed professions, they have registries where you can look people up and confirm their status. The bot might need to carry out a somewhat involved fraud if they're checking.


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anonnontoday at 6:31 AM

I wasn't suggesting the people answering are bots, only that the verification is done by the mods and is somewhat opaque. My concern was just that these well-meaning people might be wasting their time answering botspew. And then inevitably, when they come to realize, or even just strongly suspect, that they're interacting with bots, they'll desist altogether (if the volume of botspew doesn't burn them out first), which means the actual humans seeking assistance now have to go somewhere else.

Also on subreddits functioning as support groups for certain diseases, you'll see posts that just don't quite add up, at least if you know somewhat about the disease (because you or a loved one have it). Maybe they're "zebras" with a highly atypical presentation (e.g., very early age of onset), or maybe they're "Munchies." Or maybe LLMs are posting their spurious accounts of their cancer or neurdegenerative disease diagnosis, to which well-meaning humans actually afflicted with the condition respond (probably along side bots) with their sympathy and suggestions.

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