It looks like in the future, we’re gonna verify our identities. Social media for the masses will be done with Identity verification. That’ll be the way to tell bots and people apart, stripping anonymity in the process.
Word that Mastodon is talking of age verification, we will definitely see instances adopt it. All is pointless if federating with an instance without age verification, and that makes me wonder if the Fediverse might split apart under that pressure.
It’s pure speculation, but we might see a verification tag, for those who did verify their identity, and those without are left without any tag, same as bot accounts. If the majority of people do eventually verify, that’ll cast doubt onto accounts who lack the tag. Instances could also go full whitelist mode, and all of those instances force you to verify to join. If that is to be the case, we either verify to talk to people, or we don’t and face the overwhelming bots.
But what do you think, how will the Fediverse navigate a dying internet?
So maybe not as catastrophic as I might have thought. Still gonna be notable though, models are getting more efficient and we have many out there that can run on moderate hardware. Still, anyone can use AI maliciously and money ain’t always the motive.
I’m less worried about LLMs pushing products (although finding honest reviews of products has become more difficult with AI and astroturfing), it’s their use as propaganda tools for state actors and oligarchs pushing agendas that I’m most worried about. And that’s not going away when the bubble pops.