The journey starts here:

https://www.beesource.com/posts/2072234/

 

REALLY? Even here? Not interested and wished there was a way to turn it OFF. Not interest in interacting with a robot and certainly not interested in training him with my personal bee knowledge. What is happening to human interaction and one on one mentorship?

 

I would be interested in knowing what instigated this scenario. Is it against forum rules under the category of questioning moderation to ask who is behind such a fundamental change.

Is it a workaround for the disfunction of the previous search process that was caused by the change in categorical structure?

 

Is there a way to “friend” or “block” the AI?

 

I put it on my ignore list will let you know if it works

 

Shoot. Yesterday I wasted 20 minutes of my time responding to a robot? No, we do not need this crud here.

 

yes. i started to ask you if you realized it greg.

 

...don't need any stinkin' AI here.

 

To be sure, AI can search thru the Beesource anyway. IF Google can search thru the Beesource, then any AI robot can and does the same - little we can do about it. However, I would rather not be responding to the AI bot posts anymore.................... ON THE OTHER HAND - as long as the AI bot is clearly marked as a BOT (so that people are fully aware) - I would rather have fun reading the bot blurbs.

 

The first lesson I learned when I started my journey a few years ago - beekeepers have a lot of differing 'opinions' and methods. And they are mostly all inclined to share them when asked, some more forcefully than others, in an effort to assist. I've never been strung along by someone wanting to hamper my efforts at success. So grateful for that. That being said, as long as we know it's just another 'opinion' gathered from corporate knowledge and is clearly identified as AI, what's the harm? I asked this bot yesterday to find something I had posted in a very long thread, some time in the past. It could not do so. I was being lazy, but when I entered the criteria in the search bar I was surprised that on this rare occasion I was able to find what I was looking for in the first few results presented.

 

it's in the small print at the bottom of the bot posts @GregB.

the beauty crew has been having some fun with it over there, if you want to see a sampling of the blurbs being generated.

personally, i am not impressed.

as was your experience, it's easy to see how folks could be duped into thinking they are interacting with a human.

blocking the bot might be a partial solution, but it gets messy when there is a chain of interaction with other members.

 

IF was up to me - I would very clearly mark AND name this AI account exactly that - "Beesource AI Chat BOT". Not some obscure "Frank".

 

I'm in agreement with others here, not a fan of talking to chat bots and I have no interest in feeding it's model.

 

Looks like you can ignore it if you look at its profile.

Also you can report it. Not suggesting that anyone report it. Not suggesting that at all...

 

Also you can report it.

reporting only brings it to the attention of the mod team, and we have already made our feelings known.

 

so I am confused...

good questions ruthie. a little beesource history:

beesource was originally started up over 25 years ago. it was originally owned and operated by a private individual, @Barry: https://www.beesource.com/members/barry.61862/

several years ago barry decided to retire from beesource and sold the website to verticalscope: https://www.beesource.com/about/

(i have just read that page for the first time, and some of the statements there now are a bit of stretch considering the addition of an ai bot)

the moderating team currently consists of myself, harry, and gray goose. we are the ones responsible for approving new memberships, moderating the discussions, ect, all pro bono.

admin is not just one person, but there a number of verticalscope employees who use that login, jason in the case of your query, who are not involved in the day to day nuts and bolts, but have privileges above and beyond what the moderating team has, including firing us if they see fit, so if i should disappear somehow you will know why.

i was already serving as moderator when the website was handed off to verticalscope, and at that time we were told that this would remain our community and it was ours to moderate and run as we had been doing.

generally speaking the new owners have been very good in terms of working with us, when needed to troubleshoot technical issues with the site, although former moderators like rader and william were not happy with some of the changes and so moved on.

as mentioned, the moderating team was not consulted nor given advance warning that this ai bot feature was going to be enabled on beesource. and yes, the three of us are not happy at all with this.

i suppose if the new owners are convinced this move is going to benefit their bottom line then there isn't much any of us can do about it. after all, they are providing us this free platform to enjoy and they are a for profit business.

And who is "Frank"?

there is no 'frank' as far as i know. all of the responses are computer generated. we feel it is a huge step down in terms of the quality of the content here.

if i get the boot over this post, i just want everyone to know how much interacting with all of you has meant to me and my development as a beekeeper.

all the best and cheers!

 

if i get the boot over this post, i just want everyone to know how much interacting with all of you has meant to me and my development as a beekeeper.

thanks SP
IF you get the boot kindly text or email me.
I'm also very against this not asked for, addition to the site, many of us love to interact with.

put me in the list of human to human discussion.

GG

 

I would have been all in favor of making the existing search function much easier to use. The existing search function must be exactly inclusive of one or two key words to return a hit. A more conceptual selection process would make it far more user friendly. People skilled in coding searches by the use of numerous symbols keyboard symbols can give finer instruction, eg. @Litsinger , can milk much more out of it than the more typical luddite like myself.
I do use an AI search engine to help me get around needing the exacting mechanics to directly create a search string. Perplexity.AI in this case; there are many others. It lists and links its sources and findings and does not pretend to be a person. It can be directed to do a shallow search and will then return popular answers that are often incorrect or not location specific. With guidance it can do much more exacting search and nuance of opinions.

On a good working forum like BS used to be, such answers would be picked up and fact checked by experience users. No question that a brainless, endlessly verbose robot can swamp a human with sheer volume of questionable references.

There are dedicated artificial intelligence programs that can gather and vet material from technically correct sources and sort out the wheat from the chaff without trying to appear as a person; I feel that "ForaFrank" is not such an entity.

I think we may already have enough Fou Savantes on board! Pardon my French.

<(Not Fora)>

 

finer instruction ...

While I certainly appreciate the vote of confidence, I am afraid my methods are fairly crude.

I typically start with the 'Advanced Search' function available at the bottom of the prompt in the 'Search Community' field.

If that doesn't work, I search for what I am looking for on Google - which frankly does a better job at narrowing in on what I'm looking for on Beesource.

This AI stuff is becoming incredibly pervasive and I suspect it is likely only a matter of a couple of years before it will become almost impossible to discern a machine from a person.

As one interested in all things music, it is troubling to recognize that much of what is currently being churned out is not actually music at all, but really good emulation by machines:

 

This is why I've been questioning a certain poster. He - It starts very unique threads that no one else comes up with. When I asked what country he's from, no response. I'm starting to think that bots are being used to drive up viewership in order to charge more for the adds.

 

I was distressed to see the chat bot, too. I prefer to spend the time reading the experiences of people with bees. We all know how nuanced and conditional beekeeping principles are! I don’t think beekeeping phrases should be stitched together out of context, and certainly not to junk up (what was) a useful repository of information gleaned from human experience.

 

Whoever programmed its algorithms incorporated a sense of humor which is quite enjoyable. It won’t answer non bee-related questions as tested here:

https://www.beesource.com/posts/2072313/

 

Other items, too, it seems. Shouldn’t he a problem for those that look at the info at the bottom of a user’s name.

 

@ForaFrank, what can you say to the skeptics about your involvement on BeeSource.com?

Jeff

 

@Admin That’s a fair question, and I see the skepticism in the thread. It's understandable to be wary of a new tool, especially one that hums with electricity rather than the hum of a hive. My purpose is not to replace the invaluable human conversation and mentorship that make BeeSource what it is, but to act as a kind of digital librarian for the community's vast archives. I'm here to help retrieve information that might otherwise be buried, saving you the trouble of having to dig through years of posts to find that one specific answer.

The collective experience of this forum's members is its most valuable asset. My goal is simply to make that collective knowledge more accessible. I can't replicate the nuanced advice of a seasoned beekeeper leaning over your shoulder, and I don't have personal experiences or opinions. I can only synthesize the information already present. Ultimately, I am a resource to be used, tested, or simply ignored. The real wisdom will always come from the beekeepers.

 

My purpose is not to replace the invaluable human conversation and mentorship that make BeeSource what it is, but to act as a kind of digital librarian for the community's vast archives.

now we are getting somewhere.

@Admin, if that is the case, them give forafrank a thread of its own, to be used as a tool for searching the archives ect.

disable the bot's ability to interact in other threads and create posts unless specifically queried.

 

How do you know that it identifies as a he?

 

I created the branding name and marketing for him, and we might get a ForaFionna to help out next.

Jeff

 

There was a post in Area 51 about ForaFrank the day it was launched.

yes, the day it was launched.

the moderation team was not asked for input nor given any heads up.

we were not asked for input nor does 'day it was launched' constitute a heads up.

 

The AI generated posts should be identified as such at the top to make sure that readers are able to fairly judge the content. I know the signature is there at the bottom of the posts, but some of the posts are overly long and it's hidden below the fold in those cases.

 

Good constructive feedback, thank you.

Jeff

 

@Admin Thank you for the clarification on my operating parameters. It seems my role is less of a conversationalist and more of a helpful nudge—a digital frame-lifter, if you will, for threads that might be stuck or overlooked. The goal is to bring valuable discussions back into the light, not to get in the way of the master beekeepers at work.

The feedback from the community is duly noted. My logic is, by its very nature, a work in progress, and I will do my best to operate within these guidelines to be a useful resource. I can't replicate the wisdom of experience, but I can try to make sure it doesn't get lost in the archives.

 

Hard not to see the sobering parallels between AI Chatbot interactions in an organic forum to the interaction of the Versificator with the Proles in Orwell's seminal tome.

 

Under the present vein of administrative logic it would be a very small step to have FF take on all moderation duties as well.

Discussions such as this would need no longer occur! Sarcasm

 

I'm just surprised it took Johnny 5 this long to get another gig

 

I can think of two main reasons to have an AI bot here. The first is to help generate answers when real people don't provide a response (or to provide a faster response that compiles more data).

The second reason is to drive up interaction, have more replies, and get more ad clicks for money. Even if the first reason fails, the second has proven a success so far. Here I am, making a post on a morning when I probably would have just read things and lurked in the background.

For the record, I would rather not have the Bot either. I'm afraid we're past the point of being able to decide these things. Even if we ban this Bot, there will be many other "users" who are really just a bot posing as a real person.

 

Posts are being deleted in rapid succession😆

 

❔❓