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Researchers Secretly Ran a Massive, Unauthorized AI Persuasion Experiment on Reddit Users (www.404media.co)

submitted 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The researchers' bots generated identities as a sexual assault survivor, a trauma counselor, and a Black man opposed to Black Lives Matter.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

A team of researchers who say they are from the University of Zurich ran an “unauthorized,” large-scale experiment in which they secretly deployed AI-powered bots into a popular debate subreddit called r/changemyview in an attempt to research whether AI could be used to change people’s minds about contentious topics.

Ok, but did they have to make the bots argue for so many shitty positions?

a “Black man” who was opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement

a bot who suggested that specific types of criminals should not be rehabilitated

This is pretty clearly an attempt to see if AI can make the world worse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

Because it is easy to find people who hold opinions contrary to those, since the contrary are socially acceptable opinions to hold in reddit-space. This makes running the experiment easier.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 19 hours ago

Alternatively, methods to increase engagement