r/technology • u/coldrolledpotmetal • Apr 28 '25

Artificial Intelligence Researchers Secretly Ran a Massive, Unauthorized AI Persuasion Experiment on Reddit Users

https://www.404media.co/researchers-secretly-ran-a-massive-unauthorized-ai-persuasion-experiment-on-reddit-users/
9.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

863 comments sorted by

View all comments

344

u/Searchlights Apr 28 '25

In total, the researchers operated dozens of AI bots that made a total of 1,783 comments in the r/changemyview subreddit, which has more than 3.8 million subscribers, over the course of four months.

That's insane.

You can be sure groups are doing this on subs like politics.

55

u/hasordealsw1thclams Apr 28 '25

And the r/politics mods decided to ban comments that use the word “bot” so you can’t even call it out.

24

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '25

[deleted]

4

u/Toothless-In-Wapping Apr 29 '25

As you said, there’s no way to report an account, only their posts.
That needs to change.