Why are AI bots posting links for Altman's World ID?

An investigation into the AI bots that appeared on Reddit after they partnered with OpenAI.

Key points:

  • The bots post a lot of links to products and services which appear to be adverts but are not marked as such.
  • Many of these links are for Sam Altman’s World ID.
  • Reddit added terms on AI advertising to their business page around the time the bots appeared.
  • The bots also make up stories about dead mothers, depression, drug addiction, eating disorders, medical conditions and mental health issues.
  • The Velour Fog @lemmy.world
    37·
    7 hours ago

    LOL. The bots were on reddit a LONG time before they partnered with openAI.

    More sophisticated LLM bots started joining the already extant repost bots, astroturfing gif bots, and T-shirt scam bots in early 2023. As usual, mainstream media is literally years behind.

    • SGforce@lemmy.ca
      8·
      6 hours ago

      Also, the bots like this are just mimicking astroturf accounts that always existed. Likely even trained on them.

      • DocumentingDecline@lemmy.ml
        2·
        6 hours ago

        This idea was explored by searching some of the more obscure links posted by them. The link to the CD key seller and language course seen in figure 14 for instance were posted almost exclusively by the bots so it does not seem likely that they picked these links up just from being trained on Reddit. Additionally the bots almost never post links to youtube, wikipedia, news sites or other subreddits whereas such links are amongst the most common posted by real users. So if the bots were just trained on them it would be expected to see a lot more links like those whereas currently 99% of the links the bots are posting are to products and services.

    • DocumentingDecline@lemmy.ml
      6·
      6 hours ago

      This is not mainstream media. The bot accounts explored here all began posting after Reddit partnered with OpenAI as did every account found that matched the same pattern of behavior. e.g. Same links posted.

      The activity of these AI bot accounts also coincides with Reddit adding terms and conditions about AI advertising to their business page. Hence it looks suspect.

    • mesa@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      2·
      2 hours ago

      I used to use it once in a while too haha. Its so strange how things worked out 2020+.

  • dizzle18@lemmy.zip
    14·
    7 hours ago

    At this point, I’m pretty sure the majority of content on Reddit is posted by bots. It’s at the point of looking more like instagram these days.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    6 hours ago

    There was some age-old article that talked about how early Reddit admins relied on bots to simulate participation in subreddits as a means of goosing engagement. This was billed as their secret sauce for running Digg into the ground (although Digg did a fantastic job of shooting themselves in the feet).