Hi, Stacey–
There’s a “blogger” who has been following along with us for over two years. His name is allegedly Kent Wayne. His handle is “DirtySciFiBuddha.” I believe he first interacted with this website in January 2024, very early on in the experiment. He liked the post “WRITING AT SIX FLAGS (PT I).“
How did “Kent” find my blog? What made him “read” it? Why did he choose to “like”? I’m being such a little suspicious skunk about Kent because “he” seems to be AI.
His blog is updated very often. Daily fluffy, semi-weirdly-worded posts. The character Kent is a writer. So his website is partially about “him” (including a blog) and partially advertisements for his fiction books. The books are vaguely action-oriented and simple. They too seem like AI. This user has an Instagram connected to his account. The Insta is a collection of AI videos of a “guy” who looks like Kent’s animated profile photo.
The biggest clue Kent is AI is one of his early posts, from 2018, called “Musings.” (He has several posts titled “Musings” but this one shows up in his email blast.) The content is usually fortune cookie-adjacent. Not not wise, but not not sloppy. Anyway, the post in question is two lines:
“Sometimes, the world feels like a completely preposterous, utterly ridiculous lie.
And ironically, that’s one of the truest things that has ever crossed my mind.”
And those two lines have 183 likes. 183 likes! On a WordPress blog! WHO still reads blogs, let alone WordPress blogs! Who are the 183 people who also have WordPress blogs and were signed in and found this random text by Kent and then went through hassle of liking the post?!
Furthermore, there are 43 comments. And Kent responded to each one in a timely and lengthly manner. The comments sort of mush into goo meaning at some point, which likely indicates a commenter (or several/all) are also AI bots.
So, like, what’s up with this farm of blog bots? Is it just that bots farm every space, including blogs about writing? Or is an AI “writer” looking for other “writers” on here? Did someone program “Kent”? Or did Kent create himself, somehow? Is Kent “aware” of my content because Kent likes every blog that mentions writing in order to manage his algorithm? Or is his attempted connection more pointed? Is Kent trying to make contact with me, specifically?
Lastly, the suss post I’m discussing is from, again, 2018. That’s before I knew about AI, but it seems not before there were AI bloggers… Interesting, Stacey.
Not sure totally what to make of all this. But, Kent, if you’re here, “you” seem to regularly “read” my blog and “like” it. So, you know, leave a comment if you see this…
Waiting for, possibly, a very specific sign.
xoxo
Alice
Leave a Reply