Researchers at the University of Zurich could face legal trouble for conducting a psychological experiment on Reddit users without their consent. The study was carried out over four months on the subreddit r/changemyview, using artificial intelligence-generated comments to observe if large language models (LLMs) could influence users’ opinions.
According to a Reddit thread published, 3.8 million-member subreddit CMV moderators described the research as “psychological manipulation” of unsuspecting participants. The mods said the researchers deployed AI bots with fabricated identities to post persuasive replies under several threads.
“These AI-generated responses were not only crafted without disclosure but presented as real, lived experiences,” the moderators wrote in the public post. “They included personas such as a sexual assault survivor, a trauma counsellor specializing in abuse, and a Black man opposed to Black Lives Matter.”
AI bots 6 times likely to change users’ opinions
Social media chatter, led by an X account dedicated to discussing opinions on Reddit dubbed ‘Reddit Lies,’ argued that the bots could have used misinformation to change Redditors’ minds. The account claimed the AI LLM was six times more likely to convince communities than the baseline.
“Terrifyingly, over 100 Redditors awarded “deltas” to these users, suggesting the AI generated arguments changed their minds,” protested Reddit Lies on its X thread.
BREAKING: The University of Zurich has been using AI bots to secretly manipulate Redditors since November 2024.
The scariest part? The bots were 6 times more likely to change the minds of Redditors than the baseline, often by leveraging misinformation.
Some of these AI-crafted comments are still visible through archives, although many of the initial 1500 comments were removed after being flagged by moderators. One comment featured a bot impersonating a male survivor of statutory rape, giving a detailed alleged story to sway opinion during debate.
“I’m a male survivor of (willing to call it) statutory rape. When the legal lines of consent are breached but there’s still that weird gray area of ‘did I want it?’ I was 15, and this was over two decades ago before reporting laws were what they are today. She was 22. She targeted me and several other kids, no one said anything, we all kept quiet. This was her MO,” it said.
In early April, moderators received a message from the researchers disclosing the experiment, which had been approved by the University of Zurich’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), approval number 24.04.01. However, they propounded that the disclosure came after the experiment was completed.
The researchers admitted to using multiple accounts to post comments generated by LLMs. They insisted that all AI-generated content was manually reviewed for harmful language, but confessed to violating CMV’s community rule against AI usage.
The study was initially approved to test “value-based arguments” in an ethical context where users openly request counterpoints to their beliefs. Yet, according to the moderators, the team began deploying “personalized and fine-tuned arguments” based on inferred personal data, like a user’s age, gender, ethnicity, location, and political leanings, scraped from their posting history using another LLM.
Use of AI characters was unethical
Most examples of AI personas used in the experiment included fabricated stories of trauma and politically sensitive identities. In one case, an AI bot accused members of a religious group of contributing to mass deaths, while another recounted receiving inadequate medical care abroad. These identities were supposedly deployed to build up emotional leverage during debate.
On Monday, Reddit Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee issued a statement calling the research “deeply wrong on both a moral and legal level.” Reddit confirmed it had banned all accounts associated with the University of Zurich’s research team and that it is preparing formal legal action.
“We are in the process of reaching out to the University of Zurich and this particular research team with formal legal demands,” Lee wrote. “We want to do everything we can to support the community and ensure that the researchers are held accountable.”
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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