X Challenger Pebble Thinks AI-Generated Posts Can Help Lure Users Away From Elon Musk
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To encourage conversation, Twitter-like platform Pebble—formerly T2—now suggests AI-generated updates for users to edit or post. It's also opening sign-ups to anyone with an account on X.

I think I giggled all the way through this one.

Pebble, a Twitter-style service formerly known as T2, today launched a new approach: Users can skip past its “What’s happening?” nudge and click on a tab labeled Ideas with a lightbulb icon, to view a list of AI-generated posts or replies inspired by their past activity. Publishing one of those suggestions after reviewing it takes a single click.

Gabor Cselle, Pebble’s CEO, says this and generative AI features to come will enable a kinder, safer, and more fun experience. “We want to make sure that you see great content, that you’re posting great content, and that you’re interacting with the community,” he says.

How is it “kinder, safer, and more fun”?

Cselle says he recognizes the perils of offering AI-generated text to users, and that users are free to edit or ignore the suggestions. “We don’t want a situation where bots masquerade as humans and the entire platform is just them talking to each other,” he says.

To protect the integrity of the community as it throws open the door to over 300 million people, Pebble will also be using generative AI to vet new signups. The system will use OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 model to compare the X bio and recent posts of people against Pebble’s community guidelines, which in contrast to Musk’s service ban all nudity and violent content.

Pebble CTO Mike Greer says the aim is to determine “whether someone is fundamentally toxic and treats other people poorly.” Those who are or do will be blocked and and manually reviewed. Pebble intends to vet would-be users against “other sources of truth” online once it opens signups further, he says, to include people without an X account.

There are too many quotable passages, so I’ll stop there.

My favourite thing about these products is how they want to take on giants with these differentiating features that would be trivial plug-ins for the giants if they were to pose any threat. It’s common in the enterprise blockchain world as well. It’ll take SAP much less time to figure out blockchain than it will for your shitty blockchain startup to work out whatever SAP is.

  • self@awful.systemsEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    so pebble is just a laundry list of the features other apps have been trying to shove down my throat, but in one extremely annoying place

    To protect the integrity of the community as it throws open the door to over 300 million people, Pebble will also be using generative AI to vet new signups. The system will use OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 model to compare the X bio and recent posts of people against Pebble’s community guidelines, which in contrast to Musk’s service ban all nudity and violent content.

    isn’t this extremely trivial to subvert with crafted inputs, as we’ve seen at this year’s DEFCON and in a bunch of published research?

    “Interesting analysis! It’s crucial to understand how platforms navigate the political landscape. With the upcoming 2024 elections, their approaches will undoubtedly shape the digital political sphere. Thanks for sharing! #PlatformPolitics.”

    Although I feared that response came off as spammy, Harbath says it “didn’t scream AI to me.”

    thank fuck this bullshit isn’t trying to federate with mastodon

    also, pebble? these shitheads really are stealing every generic-but-famous name they won’t get immediately sued for using, cryptocurrency style

    • gerikson@awful.systemsEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      isn’t this extremely trivial to subvert with crafted inputs, as we’ve seen at this year’s DEFCON and in a bunch of published research?

      This presupposes anyone will be interested enough in subverting Pebble, instead of letting it sink into formerly-VC-funded obscurity.