by Dan Burns

Oct 28, 2025, 6:00 AM

Regarding our large language AI spam comments

I don’t know why spammers keep infesting WordPress. They can’t really believe that we’re going to upload their stuff for public view. But I suppose if they somehow get click rates of even a fraction of a percent they figure it’s worth it. Anyway, this is typical of what we get a lot of here:

Flattering, but obviously artificial. Here’s another example of what gets sent to the spam file every day:

Turkish, maybe? Anyway, not too long ago these showed up, targeted respectively at stories I posted about the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and about proposed sulfide mining. They’re not the same as the usual items.

And:

You undoubtedly noted that despite being about different topics and coming from different sources they’re practically the same thing. Cliched, disjointed, utterly lacking any kind of distinctive human touch…to me it was readily apparent that they’re the product of the amazing artificial “intelligence” that’s going to transform our world, like it or not. According to the desperately relentless Big Tech hype, anyway. And, indeed, when I ran one through an AI detector I got a 100% likelihood that that’s what it is. To me if this is typical of what large language artificial “intelligence” is all about it’s pretty damn pathetic.

I will note, though, that I’m one of those people that has spent an inordinate amount of my lifetime so far with my nose in books. For the big majority that choose to spend their time and effort in other ways, pretty much automatic AI detection may not come so easily. But I suspect that most will pick up on it over time. Very few people welcome the idea of being manipulated by machines.