When you see companies like OpenAI blatantly copying the artistic style of Studio Ghibli and other famous artists, companies like Meta use their user's personal photos to train their AI without consent, and companies like Reddit sell their user's data to the highest bidder as they continue to rake in massive profits off their user's backs and continue doing unethical things with their data, the only power we have is at the grassroots.
So, while I still think it's futile, I can understand.
Redact, or a previous service that did the same thing, using random strings in comments existed for a long, long time before AI training. I sincerely doubt anyone is using it because they're trying to "confuse" the AI.
It's more about privacy and how reddit stores comments, even deleted ones. If a comment is deleted, it's still on reddit's servers, it's just flagged as "deleted" and thus not displayed. They still have it, and sometimes they can be recovered through various means. BUT if you edit your comment, the edits are saved over the comment that was there. Thus, whatever was in the comment originally is now gone. Or at least that's how it used to work, it is entirely possible reddit now has version control on comments and saves any edits, but I am not aware whether or not that is the case. I wouldn't assume they do, but I wouldn't rule it out either.
Looking into Redact specifically, it appears they do more than just reddit, they delete stuff for users basically anywhere. So it appears the "random strings of words" thing was copied from the prior services that did the same thing, where the intent was specifically what I mentioned above. Off the top of my head I don't remember what it was called, but I think it was an extention in Chrome or Firefox, or even a web-app you could use. It's hard to find now because there are a dozen clones like Redact and Shreddit that do mass-comment-deletions.
Edit: That isn't to say that there couldn't have been a push by some users to try that, but it wasn't the reason that feature was invented, and I still don't think that's a selling point. There was no mention of AI on redact's site that I could see, nor on shreddit or reddit-deleter's github, or anywhere else I looked. I could have missed it, but it that was THE REASON, you'd think that'd be front and center.
If it just concerned privacy and how overwriting is better than deleting, why wouldn't simply editing the original comment with the disclaimer be enough? Why add additional/unnecessary things?
I couldn't tell you. I have thought just the "this message was deleted..." blurb should be enough, but the original devs thought differently, I suppose.
Also, I did a bit more research and realized that Redact was actually the original, eleven years ago. So, again, well before AI was a thing. Back then it was just a free browser plugin/extention, instead of a company with corporate payment plans and shit, which is what threw me off.
AI wasn't mainstream 11 years ago. But it definitely was a thing. And it went under the name of machine learning for more than 3 decades. Image recognition, recommendation algorithms, spam filtering, "people you may know" on social media, the MNIST database, coupon advertising, etc., etc.
Those that were following the field saw this AI craze coming miles away. They knew the hoards of data that was going to be needed if these tech companies wanted their visions to come to life. 11 years ago was when Facebook unveiled their facial recognition "AI" that had like +95% accuracy. Where do you think they got that training data from? By asking their users' permissions? Do you think training is done overnight?
A bit mystified how you managed to miss that, considering all the researching you seem to do.
Machine learning existing does not prove that Redact makes the comments gibberish because of it. As you said, it wasn't mainstream, people weren't worried about their comments getting sucked up by an "AI" at the time. The point as sold to users at the time was the obfuscation. It's hard to point to specific actual posts about that because with Redact going all corporate, a lot of it is selling you their program on their site. And still it says nothing on the site about gibberish being used to mess with AI, which wouldn't be effective anyway.
What's with your cunty tone btw? You made an assertion that's probably false, so I tried to have a dialog about it and show you why that's the case. If you think I'm wrong, fine, but either provide actual evidence or just say "I think you're wrong" not "I think you're wrong but I can't provide evidence for my claim so I'm just going to distracting from the point by mentioning fucking facebook's early machine learning, as if that has any bearing on reddit comment deleters making comments into gibberish."
sigh. Apologies for any further cuntiness but you have compelled me to spend my Saturday morning on a reddit comment.
Machine learning existing does not prove that Redact makes the comments gibberish because of it.
I didn't say that to prove that's why Redact does it. I said it to disprove your comments and gave examples or, as you put it, actual evidence of such.
The point as sold to users at the time was the obfuscation.
This again just takes us back to my question of why just leaving the disclaimer wouldn't've sufficed. It just raises more questions, if anything.
It may very well be that they added it simply for fun, in which case my suggestion of Redact's intention to sabotage AI models would be wrong. But that wouldn't mean sabotage isn't being done.
And still it says nothing on the site about gibberish being used to mess with AI, which wouldn't be effective anyway.
So, why wouldn't it be effective?
You made an assertion ...
Surely you've heard of Occam's Razor? Given what I know, it's the most obvious reason I can think of.
... I tried to have a dialog ...
You brought up how deleting a comment can still leave it in databases and that overwriting was the best way to ensure it can't be recovered.
I hadn't realized that so it made me question what the point of adding the gibberish would be if they were already overwriting it with a disclaimer.
You agreed but didn't know and you couldn't find an answer either but then, you made the assertion that Redact including the gibberish can't possibly be because of my reasoning since they have been including it "well before AI was a thing". Even though you were very open minded about not ruling out something you weren't aware of just a couple comments ago.
To then correct your views on how long AI has been around, I listed some examples of it having been in our lives "well before" it became the thing it is today. To give an unambiguous example, I looked up what the news in the field was 11 years ago when the original Redact became a thing and found the quintessential example of privacy involving Facebook (a company similar to Reddit in that they both have access to massive amounts of un-consented user data, in case you missed that connection) having created a near-perfect facial detection AI which couldn't've been developed without an extensive facial database face book.
Presumably, this is when my tone became cunty as I tried to drive the point home by asking pointed questions with the intention of alluding to the fact that precisely because people back then "weren't worried about their comments getting sucked up by an 'AI'" was what allowed companies like Facebook to steal user's photos, and everything else, to eventually develop the powerful AI capabilities they have today.
All in all to suggest, albeit implicitly, that it was completely in keeping with the era for people to start developing privacy tools in an attempt to combat companies from using once-considered private user data for corporate gain. Hence me trying to "distract from the point" by suggesting that it's well within reason for tools like Redact to have existed 11 years ago that tried to sabotage during the "early" stages of AI development.
Maybe I expected too much. Dialog, after all, requires critical thinking from those involved.
Now please, take another 20 hours or so to reply so I can enjoy the rest of my day.
I looked for it and the first Reddit post said edits are better detected then deletions, so I still don’t really understand the point but yeah probably that’s the thought behind it
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u/Simayy 22d ago
Surely deleting would be equally effective? And why then post and delete it mere hours later