The chatbots took on a variety of guises, many of which were quite convincing. (Image credit: Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Reddit is planning to sue a group of researchers who used AI chatbots to secretly experiment on its users.
Scientists from the University of Zurich have launched an army of AI bots on the popular Reddit forum r/changemyview, where nearly 4 million users gather to discuss controversial issues, to see if the technology can influence public opinion.
In the experiment, bots left more than 1,700 comments on the subreddit using a variety of fictitious personas, including a male rape victim who minimized his trauma; a domestic violence counselor who argued that the most vulnerable are women “protected by overprotective parents”; and a black man speaking out against the Black Lives Matter movement. These bots worked in tandem with another bot that reviewed user profiles to tailor their responses to be more persuasive.
The Zurich researchers then informed the forum moderators of their experiment “as part of a disclosure,” providing a link to the original version of their results.
“The CMV Mod Team needs to notify the CMV community about an unauthorized experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Zurich on CMV users,” the subreddit's moderators wrote in a notice. “We believe this was wrong. We do not believe that the phrase 'this has not been done before' can justify conducting such experiments.”
Results from a study that assessed the effectiveness of bots using a site feature that allows users to reward comments that change their minds found that AI-generated responses were three to six times more persuasive than human responses.
The authors, who (contrary to standard academic practice) did not reveal their names in the draft, noted that throughout the experiment, unsuspecting users “never expressed concerns that comments posted from our accounts might have been generated by AI.”
The post sparked an angry response from users and Ben Lee, Reddit's chief legal officer, who, in a comment under the post using the username traceroo, said the site would file a formal lawsuit against the University of Zurich.
“What the team at the University of Zurich did is extremely wrong, both morally and legally,” Li wrote. “It violates academic research and human rights standards, and is contrary to Reddit’s terms of service and rules, including the subreddit rules.”
In response, the University of Zurich told 404 Media that the researchers would not publish the results of the study and that in future their ethics committee would apply stricter review procedures, including coordinating with online communities before they became unsuspecting subjects of a mass experiment.
Whatever legal challenges follow, experiments like these highlight the growing ability of chatbots to intrude into online conversations. In March, researchers demonstrated that OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 Large Language Model can already successfully pass the Turing test, fooling test participants into thinking they were communicating with another human 73% of the time.
It also lends some credence to the theory that, if left unchecked, AI chatbots could displace humans from creating most of the content on the internet. This concept, known as the “dead internet” theory, remains just that — a conspiracy theory — at least for now.
Sourse: www.livescience.com
