I have showdead enabled and recently noticed a massive influx of dead comments from users with names like "Jeff_Davis" and "Richard_Smith" that are just short, AI generated summaries of the link itself.

They don't appear to be karma whoring as (most of the time) they don't even seem to be expressing a positive opinion of the link. Just short, useless summaries that are often just a rephrasing of the information given in the post title.

What do you think the purpose of this is?

My guess: bulk creation of fake accounts on social media for criminal purposes or spam is a thing, e.g. https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/cybe...

The classical reason is to try to hide when the bots shill by engaging some other random things too.

I assume they are testing a bot.

I'm just glad those comments are still easy to spot.

A belief system that there is value in this form of forum participation.

If you were artificial, wouldn't you be trying to normalize your participation about now?

I imagine they would feel a lot better when they aren't the odd man out, and even more so to make up the vast majority.

As things continue to escalate.