I have not enabled any Ai features as far as I am aware. But suddenly there are a whole lot of bot accounts i did not create. These appeared after the latest set of updates. Why did these get created and how can I get rid of them? I have no need of Ai for the forum.
AI-generated summary
This discussion addresses user concerns regarding the sudden appearance of multiple bot accounts following recent Discourse updates. Andro reports these accounts were created despite not enabling AI features, asking how to remove them.
nickdb explains that these bots are part of the standard build and that a recent update split a single agent account into individual accounts for specific features, referencing PR #43676. While suggesting users could potentially remove unused bots and their dependencies, nickdb notes that AI agents are becoming integral to platform security, such as anti-spam measures.
satonotdead expresses a preference for a single unified user for all AI bots, arguing that separating them complicates usage in chat or personal messages. In response, nickdb suggests creating custom agents with bound tools, advocating for the task-specific “agentic” approach to improve accuracy.
sam confirms the change is deliberate, explaining that the previous model (one user per language model) was confusing. The new system creates a user for every enabled AI Bot agent, which is easier to explain to users. Although acknowledging the disruption, sam emphasizes the clarity of the new state.
Finally, satonotdead accepts the change, noting they have successfully implemented a Senior Bot to delegate tasks to subagents, a capability that was previously unavailable.
They are part of the build whether you use them or not, recently a single account for the agent was broken out to individual ones for the relevant features.
Something I also noticed. If the system will let you, can’t see why you can’t remove them and their dependencies, if you will never use them.
It’s something that is becoming integral to the platform, I couldn’t imagine anti-spam without the AI agent..
I still think it would be great to be able to use just one user for all the AI bots.
Keeping them separated by agent makes using them from chat or personal message users extremely complicated.
You could just create your own agent and bind the required, built-in, discourse tools to it.
I am also a fan of the less-is-more philosophy but there is something to be said about the agentic approach, being task-specific. Makes accuracy and consistency better imo.
This change is deliberate.
We used to create users per language model, this is very confusing and was very hard to explain.
Instead we now create a user for every AI agent that has AI Bot enabled. This is a far easier to explain state of affairs.
You have a user for “forum helper” cause you are allowing users to talk to “forum helper”
I know this was disruptive, but at least the current new state of affairs is a lot easier to explain.
Yeah, I understand there are technical limitations from time to time and the current new state of affairs is better than the original. I am grateful for all the effort the Core Team put into it.
I ended up adding Jev and using a Senior Bot to delegate tasks to subagents. This was not possible before, and I am happy testing it.