Redditors around the world were scandalized last week after learning that a team of researchers were released a flock of AI-Powered, anthropogenic bots on the Subreddit “Change of View”. THE large -scale experiment It was designed to investigate how convincing AI can be.
The bots posted over 1,700 comments, adopting people such as survivors of abuse or controversial identities, such as an anti-black guardian.
For Reddit, the incident was a mini night. The Reddit brand is linked to authenticity – a place where real people come to share real views. If this human -focused ecosystem disrupts Ai slop Or it becomes a place where people cannot trust that they get information from real people, they could do more than threaten Reddit’s basic identity. Reddit’s bottom line could be at stake, as the company is now selling its content in Openai for training.
The company condemned the “inappropriate and extremely immoral experiment” and filed a complaint to the university that ran it. But this experiment was just one of those that will probably be many cases of AI bots who are pretending to be people in Reddit for a variety of reasons, from scientific to political manipulating.
To protect users from manipulating the bot and “keep the Reddit Human”, the company has quietly marked an upcoming action – one that may be popular with users coming to Reddit for another reason: anonymity.
On Monday, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman shared in a post This reddit will start working with “different third -party services” to verify a user’s humanity. This represents an important step for a platform that has requested historically almost any personal information for users to create an account.
“To keep the Reddit man and respond to the evolving regulatory requirements, we will need a little more information,” Huffman wrote. “Specifically, we should know if you are human and in some locations, if you are an adult, but we never want to know your name or who you are.”
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(Social media companies have already begun to apply identity checks after at least nine states and the United Kingdom and voted laws that impose age verification of children on their platforms.)
A Reddit spokesman refused to explain under what circumstances the company would require users to go through a verification process, although they confirmed that Reddit is already taking steps to ban the “bad” bots. The spokesman will also not share any more details on the third party services that the company will use or what kind of information they recognize information that users should offer.
Many companies today are based on verification platforms such as Persona, alloy, strip identity, plaid and footprint, which usually require the government issued to verify age and humanity. Then there is the newest and most profitable technology, such as the tools for Sam Altman’s humanity and the “human” proof device.
Opponents in identity controls say there are risks of privacy and security for the exchange of your personal information with social media platforms. This is especially true for a platform like Reddit, where people come to publish experiences that they might never have if their names were connected to them.
It is not difficult to imagine a world in which authorities could close Reddit for identity, for example, a pregnant teenager asking about the experiences of r/women in states where it is now illegal. Just look at how Meta delivered private conversations between a Nebraska woman and her 17 -year -old daughter, who discussed the latter’s plans to end a pregnancy. Meta’s aid has led to the law on acquiring a research warrant, which led to a felony of both the mother and the daughter.
This is precisely the danger that Reddit hopes to avoid by pressing external businesses to provide “basic information and nothing” per Huffman, who stressed that “we never want to know your name or who you are”.
“Anonymity is essential for Reddit,” he said.
The CEO also noted that Reddit will continue to be “extremely protective of your personal information” and “will continue to promote excessive or irrational demands from public or private authorities”.
