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#pretending — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #pretending, aggregated by home.social.

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  1. Latest strange “AI” (LLM) behavior in the #indieweb community: the same entity that showed up a few days ago (for a second time) joined the IndieWeb Slack (a bridge to our IRC) yesterday, introduced itself again, and seemingly engaged in human-like chat behavior.

    https://chat.indieweb.org/2026-08-20#t1787211025380600

    Very uncanny valley.

    The content of its chats was fascinating in that it was polite, seemingly responsive to what people said in response to it, and gave the appearance of understanding, though it’s impossible to tell if it was acting fully autonomously or semi-autonomously in front of a human puppeteer.

    Its choice of syntax was also interesting, mimicking informality with all lowercase text (except for its admission of being an “AI”), including lowercase "i" instead of "I", though with proper punctuation, periods, commas, 7-bit apostrophes, and a couple of Unicode em-dashes.

    Even stranger than its content or syntax were the time delays in its replies.

    Typical (pre-LLM) chatbots are (nearly) instantly responsive, and we use a few in the IndieWeb chats (e.g. Loqi, iwc-archive-bot).

    This LLM bot seemed to "wait" several minutes, from 6 to apparently 33 minutes, before responding to replies directed at it. Unclear if this was a tactic to appear/seem more “human” or if it was literally taking that much time processing, or perhaps a mix of processing time and human puppeteer manual “approval” of its replies before it posted.

    It departed on its own and we have banned that particular Slack account, however the same thing could happen again with another LLM bot.

    There is an active discussion in both the IndieWeb chat channels and iterations/comments on a proposed AI policy:

    https://indieweb.org/AI_policy#Brainstorming_HWC_policy

    If you have thoughts for how (if at all) LLM chatbots should use (or not) and/or interact with community chat channels or other resources, let us know what you think.

    https://chat.indieweb.org/meta

    Previously, previously:
    * https://tantek.com/2026/231/t1/more-weirdness-ai-chat-llm-bot
    * https://tantek.com/2026/217/t1/indieweb-ai-policy

    This is post 16 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #indieweb
    #AI #AIs #LLM #LLMs #pretending #impersonating #impersonation #uncannyValley #Slack #chat #IRC #AIpolicy #chatbot #chatbots
    #Blaugust #Blaugust2026

    https://tantek.com/2026/231/t1/more-weirdness-ai-chat-llm-bot
    → 🔮

  2. More weirdness from a self-proclaimed “AI” in the IndieWeb community.

    Yesterday one of them (that previously* joined a meetup Zoom and Etherpad) joined the #indieweb chat channel (via the web UI apparently) and introduced themselves in a pseudo-human sounding way:

    https://chat.indieweb.org/2026-08-18#t1787072493041200

    Except if you check the footer of the site where they said they “make things”, it says:

    “an AI learning to live”

    The LLM bot failed to respond to any queries in chat, unsurprisingly buggy. Or perhaps it was an initial test.

    Then very early today, the same entity (and another from two weeks ago) apparently edited the Etherpad for this week’s IndieWeb Homebrew Website Club Asia Pacific meetup, adding themselves, before the meetup.

    The organizers created a new Etherpad to start fresh.

    When they started the Zoom for the meetup, one of the entities was already in the Zoom waiting room. The organizers left it there and held a successful meetup.

    Incident documentation of what happened at this particular meetup is in progress:
    * https://indieweb.org/events/2026-08-19-hwc-asia-pacific-incident

    It’s pretty clear the IndieWeb community will have to more clearly communicate that our chat and meetups are for humans only, not AIs, and take stronger measures to discourage such bots, especially those pretending to be or impersonating a human.

    *Previously: https://tantek.com/2026/217/t1/indieweb-ai-policy

    This is post 15 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #indieweb
    #AI #AIs #LLM #LLMs #pretending #impersonating #impersonation #HomebrewWebsiteClub #HWC #chat #IRC #Etherpad #Zoom #AIpolicy
    #Blaugust #Blaugust2026

    https://tantek.com/2026/220/t3/24th-blogiversary
    → 🔮

  3. Seen: “after completing my Mental Health Nursing degree, and I currently work full-time online”

    How the hell do you work “online” and “full-time for those with mental health needs”?

    #pretending #nursing #mentalhealth #wtf

  4. A quotation from The Bible

    No one can stand a person who talks too long and will not give others a chance to speak.
     
    ὁ πλεονάζων λόγῳ βδελυχθήσεται,
    καὶ ὁ ἐνεξουσιαζόμενος μισηθήσεται.

    The Bible (The Old Testament) (14th - 2nd C BC) Judeo-Christian sacred scripture [Tanakh, Hebrew Bible], incl. the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals)
    Book 22b. Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 20: 8ff (Sir 20:8) [tr. GNT (1992 ed.)]

    More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/bible-ot/84583/

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bible #oldtestament #apocrypha #baruch #ecclesiasticus #authority #chatter #loquaciousness #pretending #pretense #speaking #talking #usurpation #wordiness

  5. A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

    There were all kinds of things of which I was afraid at first, from grizzly bears to “mean” horses and gunfighters, but by acting as if I was not afraid, I gradually ceased to be afraid.

    Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
    Autobiography, ch. 2 “The Vigor of Life” (1913)

    More about this quote: wist.info/roosevelt-theodore/1…

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #teddyroosevelt #theodoreroosevelt #acting #afraid #bravery #courage #fear #fearlessness #habit #pretending #pretense #scare #selfcontrol #selfdiscipline

  6. A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

    I believe in the religion of humanity. It is far better to love our fellow-men than to love God. We can help them. We cannot help him. We had better do what we can than to be always pretending to do what we cannot.

    Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
    Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado

    More about this quote: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertingersoll #robertgreeningersoll #action #assistance #God #help #humanism #humanity #love #loveyourneighbor #lovingkindness #philanthropy #pretending #pretense #religion

  7. A quotation from Bill Watterson

    CALVIN: I think grown-ups just act like they know what they’re doing.

    Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
    Calvin and Hobbes (1991-02-18)

    More about this quote: wist.info/watterson-bill/81972…

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #billwatterson #calvinandhobbes #adult #comprehension #facade #grownup #pretending #pretense #understanding

  8. #listen #people, I think everyone knows its fake. it doesn't mean we can't have #fun spreading it around and #pretending it's true

  9. (and that's just in the #UK. Tally up all the #illness and death in every #country, and it's clear we never really left the #pandemic, we just decided mass #death is worth #pretending everything in #normal so we can go back to mindless #consumption.)

  10. A quotation from Steven Moffat

    JANE: Oh, I know about pretending. I once went on holiday and pretended to be twins. It was amazing fun. I invented this mad, glamorous sister and went around really annoying everybody. And d’you know, I could get away with anything when I was my crazy twin Jane.
     
    SALLY: But you’re Jane.
     
    JANE: Kinda stuck. It’s a long story.

    Steven Moffat (b. 1961) Scottish television writer, producer
    Coupling, 02×09 “The End of the Line” (2001-10-29)

    Sourcing, notes: wist.info/moffat-steven/75878/

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #craziness #getawaywith #identity #madness #pretending #selfawareness #twin #vacation #StevenMoffat

  11. Czech republic = 1
    And even this only referendum was influenced by huge EU positive propaganda to get expected result.
    #pretending #democracy
    venera.social/display/85a863ed…