As Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes more prevalent on social media, what are the odds that you could be interacting with, sharing resources with and/or building community online with a bot or AI feature, rather than a human being? The odds are actually pretty great.

To keep yourself safe and know you’re engaging in meaningful ways with a real human being, here are some things to look for:

1. Comments Often Feature a Similar Pattern

AI is only as good as the humans who give it the context, prompts and tools to return valid responses. Most users of the AI tools will simply ask the platform to offer a comment they can post and will receive mostly generic words back. This means the comments tend to follow similar patterns.

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2. Use of Emojis

Many AI tools (Claude.ai, ChatGPT and others) like to embed emojis (small digital pictures and icons to reflect sentiments) to embellish a comment or message. You might see these emojis as bullets in a list, before a comment post or to accentuate a key point of the message. Yes, humans can also use emojis in their copy, so this feature alone doesn’t indicate the comment is AI-generated.

3. It Doesn’t Sound Like the Person You Know

If you know the person commenting, and their comment sounds different from how they usually speak, there could be many reasons. Perhaps they feel more formal or careful when they comment to LinkedIn (but are more relaxed socially). Perhaps they’re hurrying and therefore missing key elements. And it’s possible they are using AI because they lack the confidence or skill to comment effectively.

4. All of Their Comments Read the Same

When I suspect use of AI to comment, I sometimes head over to the person’s LinkedIn account and see their other comments. When they all follow the same format or use of language and elements, it’s often a reflection of their use of AI. On the other hand, if they comment differently to different people and there’s a human voice attached, I’m more assured they posted the comment without AI assistance.

5. Missing the Human (Emotional) Element

It stands to reason that a robot couldn’t feel what a human can and may compensate by using exclamation points or emoticons to show human feelings. If the emotion behind the message or comment doesn’t align as appropriate for what you might expect, it could be AI-generated.

What Can You Do if You’re Engaging with a Bot?

Some people ignore comments on their posts they suspect are AI-generated, and for many, this strategy can work. But remember that others who are reacting (“Likes,” “Celebrating” and “Supporting”) to your posts may view your lack of responding to a comment as off-putting. After all, if they don’t also suspect that the comment came from a bot and not a person, they might feel you’re ignoring someone’s viewpoint.

Instead of offering a full response to a comment, one option is to “Like” the comment and respond with “Thanks” to show you saw it but are not engaging further.

I am a prolific user of LinkedIn and have been surprised by more than one colleague — who I know to be credible, knowledgeable and passionate about their work — responding to a post of mine with an overtly AI-generated comment. Here’s an example (I removed the actual comment so as not to embarrass the person who shared it):

I posted about speaking at a recent event which supported the military community by bringing thought leaders and employers together to discuss progress, challenges and opportunities in the post-military hiring arena. I shared tips and insights I’d learned at the event and received this comment from a colleague: “It’s so important to gather thought leaders and employers together to discuss post-military hiring in such an arena. Good for you!”

I know this person to be more thoughtful, verbose and colorful in their typical comments. This one, being so off-brand for them, indicated it was an AI-generated comment, and not an original thought. #disappointed

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