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nickabe • today at 7:42 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

This is objectively hilarious.

Basically every large company has gone all in on AI, and as a result the number of bots has (likely, I have no proof) exploded. Then as a result of that, they crack down on "potential bots" by banning them. Of course, all they care about is what % of bots they cracked down on now what % of real people. Then because they've gone all in on AI, you can't get an actual human to help you... just a bot they trained to always say no.

My current experiences in these arena: - Opened a Meta for Business account to try and buy ads. Immediate lifetime ban before taking even a single action. Most likely thing that looks like a bot? Opening a new account. - Got bot farmed on a Google Ads campaign, delivered definitive proof of it to Google. Never got a real human, just went back and forth with a bot who was told to acknowledge everything I said without admitting fault. End result - no refund, the bot farm still operates, and I have to be super careful when buying Google Ads. - Tried to open an account to post stuff on Reddit, every post gets instantly banned because I don't have enough karma. Try to start posting comments to get karma, same thing. IN fairness, this did eventually start to work - where I could post on certain subreddits and comment in others.

Overall the experience always has the same shape - something super opaque to the end user, no resolution options, and really you are left with no alternatives because every big tech firm is doing this.

So then the same AIs that create the problem recommend you try and get media articles published about it to draw attention to the plights of the real human caused by AI bots.


Replies

pixl97 • today at 9:45 PM

>Immediate lifetime ban before taking even a single action

This actually sounds like a fun way to manipulate these large companies...

Put together a set of stolen credentials that contain business owners and other people that are likely to make these companies money.

Then use that information and bots to get them permanently banned from the platform. You'd have to do it somewhat slowly, but eventually it would start adding up to real damages.

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