Where Are the Financial Bots? Or Good Guy Bots? | Hacker News Reader

Where Are the Financial Bots? Or Good Guy Bots?

1 pointFrustratedMonky2 comments

Where are the Financial Bots? Or Good Guy Bots?

I hear about Russian Bots, China Bots, Iranian Bots, all trying to sway elections.

If people are so easily swayed by talking to bots, aren't there more applications than just elections. And why don't I hear more reporting about it.

If elections can be swayed, then I'd think sentiment about any individual company could be swayed before a trade. It is probably illegal, but that hasn't stopped investors before. Is anybody reporting on finding sentiment swaying in the wild?

For Good. I don't think there is any money in it. But is anybody using Bots for Good? Actually in the wild.

Generally I'm wondering about what is actually happening right now. Not what is theorized. I know there was a study that bots could de-condition radicals, but is anybody actually doing it.

Is there anyplace reporting on bot usage outside of election tampering. Or radicalizing for clicks. Something more subtle.

Well, if one rephrases the question to "where is all the reporting on the things that nation-state level resources are spent on hiding?", it perhaps becomes more clear what the problem is.

One of the places the scientific mindset, as useful as it is, breaks down badly is in trying to determine the truth about things that are being deliberately, intelligently hidden. All I can tell you is all the incentives are lined up for manipulation of all kinds, of which even merely "bots" are just a subset. It's obviously easy, practical, profitable, strategically important for any number of entities of all levels of ethics, and so forth. But precisely because they're hidden, they're, well, hidden. I can't prove it in general, prove any specific entity is doing it, or prove that any specific piece of content is primarily intended as manipulation in general. Sometimes in specific cases you can get lucky on that last one, but you can't in general.

Again, while I can't prove it, you're probably asking entities beholden to the biggest manipulators, if not outright tools of those manipulators, to expose the manipulation. Guess what's not going to happen? I can't prove it, I can just observe the staggeringly large incentives to capture the loudest media voices and find the idea that nobody has ever succeeded exceedingly implausible.

I was really looking for the non-nation states. Like investment companies swaying the market. This must be happening. But don't see much reported on it.

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