Redditors around the globe have been scandalized final week after studying {that a} staff of researchers launched a swarm of AI-powered, human-impersonating bots on the “Change My View” subreddit. The large-scale experiment was designed to discover simply how persuasive AI could be.
The bots posted over 1,700 feedback, adopting personas like abuse survivors or controversial identities like an anti-Black Lives Matter advocate.
For Reddit, the incident was a mini-nightmare. Reddit’s model is related to authenticity — a spot the place actual folks come to share actual opinions. If that human-focused ecosystem is disturbed with AI slop or turns into a spot the place folks can’t belief that they’re getting info from precise people, it may do greater than threaten Reddit’s core id. Reddit’s backside line could possibly be at stake, for the reason that firm now sells its content material to OpenAI for coaching.
The corporate condemned the “improper and extremely unethical experiment” and filed a criticism with the college that ran it. However that experiment was just one of what’s going to doubtless be many situations of generative AI bots pretending to be people on Reddit for a wide range of causes, from the scientific to the politically manipulative.
To guard customers from bot manipulation and “maintain Reddit human,” the corporate has quietly signaled an upcoming motion – one which may be unpopular with customers who come to Reddit for one more purpose: anonymity.
On Monday, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman shared in a submit that Reddit would begin working with “numerous third-party companies” to confirm a consumer’s humanity. This represents a major step for a platform that has traditionally required virtually no private info for customers to create an account.
“To maintain Reddit human and to satisfy evolving regulatory necessities, we’re going to want slightly extra info,” Huffman wrote. “Particularly, we might want to know whether or not you’re a human, and in some areas, if you’re an grownup. However we by no means wish to know your identify or who you might be.”
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(Social media firms have already began implementing ID checks after at the very least 9 states and the U.Ok. and handed legal guidelines mandating age verification to guard youngsters on their platforms.)
A Reddit spokesperson declined to clarify beneath what circumstances the corporate would require customers to undergo a verification course of, although they did affirm that Reddit already takes measures to ban “unhealthy” bots. The spokesperson additionally wouldn’t share extra particulars about which third-party companies the corporate would use or what sort of personally figuring out info customers must supply up.
Many firms at present depend on verification platforms like Persona, Alloy, Stripe Identification, Plaid, and Footprint, which normally require a government-issued ID to confirm age and humanity. Then there’s the newer and extra speculative tech, like Sam Altman’s Instruments for Humanity and its eye-scanning “proof of human” gadget.
Opponents to ID checks say there are information privateness and safety dangers to sharing your private info with social media platforms. That’s very true for a platform like Reddit, the place folks come to submit experiences they perhaps by no means would have if their names have been connected to them.
It’s not tough to think about a world by which authorities may subpoena Reddit for the id of, for instance, a pregnant teen asking about abortion experiences on r/ladies in states the place it’s now unlawful. Simply look how Meta handed over non-public conversations between a Nebraska girl and her 17-year-old daughter, which mentioned the latter’s plans to terminate a being pregnant. Meta’s help led legislation enforcement to amass a search warrant, which resulted in felony fees for each the mom and daughter.
That’s precisely the danger Reddit hopes to keep away from by tapping exterior companies to supply “the important info and nothing else,” per Huffman, who emphasised that “we by no means wish to know your identify or who you might be.”
“Anonymity is important to Reddit,” he mentioned.
The CEO additionally famous that Reddit would proceed to be “extraordinarily protecting of your private info” and “will proceed to push again towards extreme or unreasonable calls for from public or non-public authorities.”
