Reddit bans researchers who used AI bots to manipulate commenters

Commenters connected the fashionable subreddit r/changemymind found out past play that they've been majorly duped for months. University of Zurich researchers set out to "investigate the persuasiveness of Large Language Models (LLMs) successful earthy online environments" by unleashing bots pretending to beryllium a trauma counselor, a "Black antheral opposed to Black Lives Matter," and a intersexual battle subsister connected unwitting posters. The bots left 1,783 comments and amassed implicit 10,000 remark karma earlier being exposed.

Now, Reddit's Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee says the institution is considering ineligible enactment implicit the "improper and highly unethical experiment" that is "deeply incorrect connected some a motivation and ineligible level." The researchers person been banned from Reddit. The University of Zurich told 404 Media that it is investigating the experiment's methods and volition not beryllium publishing its results.

However, you tin inactive find parts of the research online. The insubstantial has not been adjacent reviewed and should beryllium taken with a gigantic atom of salt, but what it claims to amusement is interesting. Using GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Llama 3.1-405B, researchers instructed the bots to manipulate commenters by examining their posting …

Read the afloat communicative astatine The Verge.