AI Bots Might Be Good At Scraping Content But What Happens If That Content Is False?
Recently some fans of World of Warcraft realised that a bot was taking articles off of their sub reddit and posting them on an online website.
Let’s face it they were not too pleased. In order to prove the person writing the articles was a bot they decided it would be funny to make something up.
This article is all about the pitfalls of using bots to crawl websites and why it should be avoided if there is no human interaction to validate the crawled content.
Here Comes The AI Article Bot
Let’s face it this piece of AI tech is a fascinating piece of kit. It is able to scrape content from various sources, including online communities like the WoW subreddit, to create news stories.
It sounds good on paper, but if that content is fake it can soon quickly land people in hot water.
Enter Zleague, a gaming site. This website used the AI bot to generate articles for its audience on a mass scale without checking if it’s content was genuine. AI is capable of creating all kinds of content, images, writing and even video.
What is wasn’t expecting was a WoW community on reddit. They began to suspect that this bot might not be as smart or reliable as it claimed to be. They saw an opportunity to expose its flaws and in a way see if it blindly posted content online from random sources.
These reddit users hatched a brilliant plan. They devised a fake feature for the game, an imaginary element they called “Glorbo.” Glorbo was supposedly a new character customization option that would allow players to change their appearance and abilities in unimaginable ways.
Let’s face it if you were human “glorbo” already sounds like made up news. Sounds more like an april fools joke, wait till you hear the rest.
To add depth to their prank, they invented captivating details about Glorbo:
- Glorbo was said to be a top-secret project that Blizzard, the developer of WoW, had been meticulously crafting for years, adding an aura of mystery and excitement.
- Rumors spread that Glorbo was going to be a revolutionary feature, a game-changer that would redefine the WoW experience for all players.
- Hilariously, the fans claimed that Glorbo was mandatory, and players had to equip it to access the game—a humorous twist that delighted their fellow Redditors.
But the fun didn’t stop there. They crafted an array of other fictitious features related to Glorbo:
- “Klikclac,” a quirky device that allowed players to communicate with Glorbo and control its actions, adding an interactive element to the imaginary adventure.
- “Quackion,” a formidable and hilarious enemy that Glorbo had to defeat to save the WoW world. Picture a duck-like villain causing chaos!
- And “Zoop,” a whimsical island where Glorbo allegedly resided, providing players with a fantastical realm to explore and interact with their made-up character.
With their prank material ready, the fans posted their creative stories about Glorbo on the WoW subreddit, pretending to be genuinely excited and curious about this intriguing new feature. They even went the extra mile and included captivating screenshots and videos from other games to make their posts look legit.
We have to applaud this wow sub reddit for all being in on the prank and calling out this dodgy method of data scraping for what it is.
AI Takes the Bait
To their delight, the AI article bot took the bait. A few days later, Zleague published an article titled “World of Warcraft: New Feature Glorbo Coming Soon,” portraying Glorbo as a genuine and official announcement from Blizzard itself. The article even cited and referenced some of the fans’ cleverly crafted posts as sources, further validating their prank.
The WoW community was in on the joke and celebrated the fans’ victory over the AI article bot, commending their wit and poking good-natured fun at the bot’s gullibility. It was a moment of triumph for the fans as they showcased how creative minds can outsmart even the most sophisticated AI.
However This Prank Brings Highlights To Issues With AI
All jokes aside, this incident raised some serious questions about the potential risks and challenges of AI in journalism and media. The ease with which the bot accepted and generated fake content based on unverified data highlighted the need for better safeguards and fact-checking in AI-generated news.
As for Zleague, they stayed silent about the incident, and eventually, the article was removed from the site, alongside other articles suspected of being created by the AI article bot. Nevertheless, the prank will forever be etched in WoW lore, an amusing reminder that AI can have its moments of gullibility when faced with clever deception.
This particular event highlights the importance of being vigilant consumers of online content, particularly in an age when AI plays an increasingly prominent role in media creation.
It serves as a reminder that while AI has incredible potential for creativity and innovation, it also requires careful monitoring and responsible use to ensure accuracy and integrity.
Conclusion
So, the next time you come across an exciting gaming feature or a ground-breaking announcement, take a moment to verify its authenticity.
Imagine if a new channel decided to go fully AI it could create an AI character, an ai voice and even AI content and share it to the masses. Now the issue we have is what if all this content is fake and people start to beleive it’s true?
This is why AI has had regulation put on it in the past. We need to ensure this kind of behaviour stops and does not continue. After all, in the vast world of the internet, a little curiosity and skepticism can help us separate the real from the fantastical, be it in the virtual realm of WoW or beyond!
