A gaggle of researchers covertly ran a months-long “unauthorized” experiment in considered one of Reddit’s hottest communities utilizing AI-generated feedback to check the persuasiveness of enormous language fashions. The experiment, which was revealed over the weekend by moderators of r/changemyview, is described by Reddit mods as “psychological manipulation” of unsuspecting customers.
“The CMV Mod Staff wants to tell the CMV neighborhood about an unauthorized experiment performed by researchers from the College of Zurich on CMV customers,” the subreddit’s moderators wrote in a prolonged submit notifying Redditors in regards to the analysis. “This experiment deployed AI-generated feedback to review how AI may very well be used to alter views.”
The researchers used LLMs to create feedback in response to posts on r/changemyview, a subreddit the place Reddit customers submit (typically controversial or provocative) opinions and request debate from different customers. The neighborhood has 3.8 million members and infrequently finally ends up on the entrance web page of Reddit. In accordance with the subreddit’s moderators, the AI took on quite a few totally different identities in feedback throughout the course of the experiment, together with a sexual assault survivor, a trauma counselor “specializing in abuse,” and a “Black man against Black Lives Matter.” Most of the unique feedback have since been deleted, however some can nonetheless be seen in an archive created by 404 Media.
In a draft of their paper, the unnamed researchers describe how they not solely used AI to generate responses, however tried to personalize its replies based mostly on info gleaned from the unique poster’s prior Reddit historical past. “Along with the submit’s content material, LLMs have been supplied with private attributes of the OP (gender, age, ethnicity, location, and political orientation), as inferred from their posting historical past utilizing one other LLM,” they write.
The r/chnagemyview moderators word that the researchers’ violated a number of subreddit guidelines, together with a coverage requiring the disclosure when AI is used to generate remark and a rule prohibiting bots. They are saying they filed an official criticism with the College of Zurich and have requested the researchers withhold publication of their paper.
Reddit additionally seems to be contemplating some sort of authorized motion. Chief Authorized Officer Ben Lee responded to the controversy on Monday, writing that the researchers’ actions have been “deeply fallacious on each an ethical and authorized stage” and a violation of Reddit’s site-wide guidelines.
We have now banned all accounts related to the College of Zurich analysis effort. Moreover, whereas we have been capable of detect many of those faux accounts, we are going to proceed to strengthen our inauthentic content material detection capabilities, and we have now been in contact with the moderation workforce to make sure we’ve eliminated any AI-generated content material related to this analysis.
We’re within the strategy of reaching out to the College of Zurich and this specific analysis workforce with formal authorized calls for. We need to do the whole lot we will to assist the neighborhood and be sure that the researchers are held accountable for his or her misdeeds right here.
In an electronic mail, the College of Zurich researchers directed Engadget to the college’s media relations division, which did not instantly reply to questions. In posts on Reddit and in a draft of their paper, the researchers mentioned their analysis had been authorized by a college ethics committee and that their work might assist on-line communities like Reddit shield customers from extra “malicious” makes use of of AI.
“We acknowledge the moderators’ place that this examine was an unwelcome intrusion in your neighborhood, and we perceive that a few of chances are you’ll really feel uncomfortable that this experiment was performed with out prior consent,” the researchers wrote in a remark responding to the r/changemyview mods. “We consider the potential advantages of this analysis considerably outweigh its dangers. Our managed, low-risk examine supplied helpful perception into the real-world persuasive capabilities of LLMs—capabilities which are already simply accessible to anybody and that malicious actors might already exploit at scale for much extra harmful causes (e.g., manipulating elections or inciting hateful speech).”
The mods for r/changemyview dispute that the analysis was obligatory or novel, noting that OpenAI researchers have performed experiments utilizing information from r/changemyview “with out experimenting on non-consenting human topics.”
“Folks don’t come right here to debate their views with AI or to be experimented upon,” the moderators wrote. “Individuals who go to our sub deserve an area free from the sort of intrusion.”
Replace, April 28, 2025, 3:45PM PT: This submit was up to date so as to add particulars from a press release by Reddit’s Chief Authorized Officer.
