Why Are There So Many Bot Accounts on Quora?

As a recent observation, the number of followers on my Quora profile has surged dramatically. Prior to the advent of AI, I would gain around 50 to 70 new followers daily. These were genuine users who hadfilled out their profiles and engaged with the platform by asking or answering questions. However, recently, the number of followers has skyrocketed to between 150 to 250 per day, and their profiles appear empty. This raises an intriguing question: why are there so many bot accounts on Quora?

The Role of Bots on Quora

Bots are indeed prevalent on Quora, and their presence can be attributed to various reasons. Some users and organizations intentionally create bots to automatically answer questions, promote content, or manipulate engagement metrics. The ease with which these bots can be created and deployed on Quora’s open platform exacerbates the issue. These bots often mimic user behavior but lack substantial engagement or contribution, making it challenging for genuine users to distinguish the two.

Bots and the Answer-Generating Utility

One of the primary reasons behind the creation of bots is user laziness. Instead of writing their own answers, some users opt for pre-existing AI-generated content. While this might seem convenient, it is easy to spot the differences between human-generated and AI-generated content. Human answers often include personal insights, nuanced opinions, and relevant context, whereas AI-generated answers can be repetitive and nonsensical, lacking the subtleties that humans bring.

Quora itself has also added AI-generated answers to the top of some question pages. This is likely a marketing stratagem by Quora, designed to promote their AI assistant, Poe. When you click on these AI-generated answers, you are directed to other questions that could be answered using Poe. The AI assistant Assistant, now in use, is generally considered more accurate than ChatGPT. It has provided some decent answers to my questions, which were previously filled with nonsensical responses from ChatGPT.

Motivations Behind Bots and Quora’s Response

The use of bots is primarily motivated by a desire to improve engagement metrics. However, the uneven moderation of Quora has led to a disproportionate number of bots compared to genuine users. This has created an environment where bots outnumber real users. As a result, the platform has suffered from a lack of genuine engagement and has become a left-leaning echo chamber.

Many real users have left the platform in droves, mirroring the exodus from democratic cities. The site is trying to maintain an appearance of high engagement to retain advertisers. They need to manufacture traffic to justify the money spent on ads, much like businesses are leaving Democratic cities.

Ultimately, the prevalence of bot accounts on Quora highlights the need for more robust moderation and oversight to ensure a fair and engaging user experience for all genuine users. As AI continues to evolve, it is crucial for platforms like Quora to stay vigilant and adapt their moderation strategies accordingly.