This is the final straw. I deleted my Reddit account.
From the article: Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee responded to the controversy on Monday, writing that the researchers’ actions were “deeply wrong on both a moral and legal level” and a violation of Reddit’s site-wide rules.
I don’t believe for one moment Reddit admins didn’t know this was going on especially since it involved mining user data to feed AI. Since when does Reddit have a moral compass? Their compass always points north to maximum shareholder value which right now is looking like anything to do with AI.
Are you a researcher? Cuz you gotta tell me you are a researcher! Right?
CMV: this was a good research akin to something like white hat hackers where the point is to find and expose security exploits. What this research did is point out how easy it is to manipulate people in a “debate” forum that doesn’t allow people from pointing out bad behavior. If this is being done by researchers and publishing it. It’s also being done be nefarious actors that will not disclose it.
Wow, this is pretty concerning. As someone who spends a lot of time on Reddit, I find it really unsettling that researchers would experiment on users without their knowledge. It’s like walking into a coffee shop for a casual chat and unknowingly becoming part of a psychology experiment!
How exactly would they deploy this if they’re losing money on chatgpt responding to users saying “thank you”?
