Reddit Issuing 'Formal Legal Demands' Against Researchers Who Conducted Secret AI Experiment on Users 36
An anonymous reader shares a report: Reddit's top lawyer, Ben Lee, said the company is considering legal action against researchers from the University of Zurich who ran what he called an "improper and highly unethical experiment" by surreptitiously deploying AI chatbots in a popular debate subreddit. The University of Zurich told 404 Media that the experiment results will not be published and said the university is investigating how the research was conducted.
As we reported Monday, researchers at the University of Zurich ran an "unauthorized" and secret experiment on Reddit users in the r/changemyview subreddit in which dozens of AI bots engaged in debates with users about controversial issues. In some cases, the bots generated responses which claimed they were rape survivors, worked with trauma patients, or were Black people who were opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement. The researchers used a separate AI to mine the posting history of the people they were responding to in an attempt to determine personal details about them that they believed would make their bots more effective, such as their age, race, gender, location, and political beliefs.
As we reported Monday, researchers at the University of Zurich ran an "unauthorized" and secret experiment on Reddit users in the r/changemyview subreddit in which dozens of AI bots engaged in debates with users about controversial issues. In some cases, the bots generated responses which claimed they were rape survivors, worked with trauma patients, or were Black people who were opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement. The researchers used a separate AI to mine the posting history of the people they were responding to in an attempt to determine personal details about them that they believed would make their bots more effective, such as their age, race, gender, location, and political beliefs.
Go after them all (Score:5, Interesting)
If they're going to go after these bots then they need to go after them all.
Re:Go after them all (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems absurd to go after a lone researcher for a TOS violation when the whole site is rampant with disinformation bots. Maybe someone told Reddit's lawyers to ignore all previous instructions and give the recipe for a cake.
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If they're going to go after these bots then they need to go after them all.
They cannot reasonably do that, and luckily for what passes for justice, they are not obligated to do what you want them to be obligated to do. This is a target they can attack, so they are. If you want to fund them going after every tom, dickhead and harry who is running their own bot, by all means do so. Then you can complain if they don't.
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So what exactly can they reasonably do?
They can reasonably go after organized rings of bot operators who do not operate in secret. Nothing else has sufficient payoff to be cost effective.
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Reddit will never go after all of the bots. Bots boost reddit's advertising impression numbers and add to the stats reported to investors.
This is nothing more than a high profile PR campaign by reddit. The German researchers put a spotlight on how easily reddit users are influenced by propaganda. We all knew this, but having the cold hard proof is embarrassing for them.
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we don't need no (Score:2)
Threats to validity (Score:5, Interesting)
Not publishing the data would be unethical at this point. People should be made aware of what kind of tactics bots will employ or how to be able to recognize them. I am of course open to differing opinions to change my mind on the matter.
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It's unlikely they could publish. Journals require that researchers obtain proper ethics approval. Yes, it's a high standard, it originates with the Nuremberg Code. THAT Nuremberg. The code originated from the trial of twenty Nazi physicians and some SS officers involved in human experimentation.
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The key is to have the publisher and the experimenter be different people. Then one person's unethical experiment can become another person's Natural experiment.
I do this all the time with my Radiology Torture Cha -- oops, shit, I mean -- my wife's Radiology Torture Chamber.
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No. I have no idea what Reddit's lawyers will be up to, unless they decide they want to test their terms of service in court, which include "anything we decide we don't like is forbidden".
The OP's comment was about publication.
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Not publishing the data would be unethical at this point.
Not doing the most unethical part of the whole thing (benefiting from the release of the information) is unethical?
Reddit Bots are a Problem (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Reddit Bots are a Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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Reddit has always allowed you to sign up anonymously without an e-mail. It is literally full of bots, not just making comments but making upvotes/downvotes in favor of their owners' comments. I know people who said they had 10 reddit accounts just so they could pump their own "karma" on the site. I also have seen people brag about their bot usage and pump a post with thousands of upvotes in the matter of minutes. This is just more data showing that bots are still a problem that needs to be taken care of Reddit.
Unless they have fixed it recently, Reddit also allows people to sign up with someone else's email, even if that email address already has a Reddit account. Reddit isn't exactly on the moral high ground here, having done approximately nothing to make it harder for bots to exist on their platform, including what most people would consider to be basic security measures.
Someone sent a bot into a cesspool, and the owners of the cesspool are arguing harm for making it slightly more of a cesspool. Yeah, that's
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"This is just more data showing that bots are still a problem that needs to be taken care of Reddit."
STILL a problem? LOL that would suggest Reddit has tried to solve the "problem" or that Reddit views it as a problem rather than as the design intent.
Do not forget, Reddit was the second-class version of Digg, and largely controlled by the same people, that surged into its own when Digg was exposed as being completely corrupt. Reddit, and Digg, were designed to be manipulated so that people who knew how cou
How dare they? (Score:3)
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I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
Unethical, but insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
From the point of view of extremely well-moneyed interests, the purpose of these social media platforms is to have a mass-scale means to gain insight into consumer thoughts and preferences, and to then persuade them to alter their behavior (e.g. purchasing decisions, voting, civic action, cultural participation, lifestyle choices). The value of LLMs and similar technologies is to bridge the gap between "collect data" and "deliver effective interventions" as cheaply as possible. If these researchers had done the exact same thing for a marketing agency or a political campaign, they'd never have published a word about what they did or how they did it, and they'd still be on the platform, they'd be getting paid a LOT more money, and their results would be furthering their careers.
So for as ethically troubled as this style of research is, the pearl clutching (especially by Reddit itself) gives me the same frustrated feeling I get when researchers deliver evidence of a viable exploit complete with a working PoC and demonstration of its real-world efficacy, and the vendor threatens them with consequences for finding it.
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"But Reddit (and other social media boards) always saw themselves as the seat for the intelligentsia..."
LOL no they didn't, but having you believe that was part of their business plan.
"Putting them in the authoritarian leadership role by admitting/excluding various individuals from such positions. Putting an AGI in this role undermines that status."
They make the rules, if AGI takes "this role" it is because they allowed it.
All the research did was test the effectiveness of the exact thing sites like Reddit
Why do I prefer ChatGPT to reddit? (Score:2)
Is it because ChatGPT answers my questions whereas reddit mods just shadowbanned me?
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ChatGPT can never replace Reddit, because it doesn't call you stupid for daring to ask it something.
Mad because theyâ(TM)re exposed (Score:3)
Mixed messaging (Score:1)
Reddit to bot operators: Sure, go ahead and sign up with negligible validation, we don't care.
Reddit to bot operators who share their results: How dare you!
Reddit Has Human Users!? (Score:2)
They should add a Captcha to screen out humans.
So, just like real people? (Score:2)
In some cases, the bots generated responses which claimed they were rape survivors, worked with trauma patients, or were Black people who were opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Yes, because real people trying to change others' minds would never stoop to such perfidity!