To be fair, though, this experiment was stupid as all fuck. It was run on /r/changemyview to see if users would recognize that the comments were created by bots. The study’s authors conclude that the users didn’t recognize this. [EDIT: To clarify, the study was seeing if it could persuade the OP, but they did this in a subreddit where you aren’t allowed to call out AI. If an LLM bot gets called out as such, its persuasiveness inherently falls off a cliff.]
Except, you know, Rule 3 of commenting in that subreddit is: “Refrain from accusing OP or anyone else of being unwilling to change their view, of using ChatGPT or other AI to generate text, [emphasis not even mine] or of arguing in bad faith.”
It’s like creating a poll to find out if women in Afghanistan are okay with having their rights taken away but making sure participants have to fill it out under the supervision of Hibatullah Akhundzada. “Obviously these are all brainwashed sheep who love the regime”, happily concludes the dumbest pollster in history.
It’s like creating a poll to find out if women in Afghanistan are okay with having their rights taken away but making sure participants have to fill it out under the supervision of Hibatullah Akhundzada. “Obviously these are all brainwashed sheep who love the regime”, happily concludes the dumbest pollster in history.
I don’t particularly like this analogy, because /r/changemyview isn’t operating in a country where an occupying army was bombing weddings a few years earlier.
But this goes back to the problem at hand. People have their priors (my bots are so sick nasty that nobody can detect them / my liberal government was so woke and cool that nobody could possibly fail to love it) and then build their biases up around them like armor (any coordinated effort to expose my bots is cheating! / anyone who prefers the new government must be brainwashed!)
And the Bayesian Reasoning model fixates on the notion that there are only ever a discrete predefined series of choices and uniform biases that the participant must navigate within. No real room for nuance or relativism.
I don’t think so. Yeah the researchers broke the rules of the subreddit but it’s not like every other company that uses AI for advertising, promotional purposes, propaganda, and misinformation will adhere to those rules.
The mods and community should not assume that just because the rules say no AI does not mean that people won’t use it for nefarious purposes. While this study doesn’t really add anything new we didn’t already know or assume, it does highlight how we should be vigilant and cautious about what we see on the Internet.
Reread the rule @TheTechnician27@lemmy.world listed; it’s not a rule against posting AI, it’s a rule against accusing people of posting AI, the very thing they were trying to prompt people to do.
So, if nobody accuses them, is it because nobody noticed, or is it because nobody wanted to break the no-accusing rule? It’s impossible to tell, which makes the results of the study worthless.
Can you explain your complaint a bit more? I’m trying to figure out just what you mean with your comment, but all I can see out of it is “reddit sucks”. Which… yeah, but in this instance why?
So nothing specific at all just, kind of lashing out for the fuck of it by latching on to some random nonsense.
Biggest advice anyone can give you right now: let it go. Reddit can’t hurt you anymore. Constantly obsessing about it, no matter how much it does suck, will only drag you down a spiral of contempt and despair.
Most of all, dont drag others down that spiral either. We’ve got much bigger issues than some reddit mods or whatever abusing power.
To be fair, though, this experiment was stupid as all fuck. It was run on /r/changemyview to see if users would recognize that the comments were created by bots. The study’s authors conclude that the users didn’t recognize this. [EDIT: To clarify, the study was seeing if it could persuade the OP, but they did this in a subreddit where you aren’t allowed to call out AI. If an LLM bot gets called out as such, its persuasiveness inherently falls off a cliff.]
Except, you know, Rule 3 of commenting in that subreddit is: “Refrain from accusing OP or anyone else of being unwilling to change their view, of using ChatGPT or other AI to generate text, [emphasis not even mine] or of arguing in bad faith.”
It’s like creating a poll to find out if women in Afghanistan are okay with having their rights taken away but making sure participants have to fill it out under the supervision of Hibatullah Akhundzada. “Obviously these are all brainwashed sheep who love the regime”, happily concludes the dumbest pollster in history.
I don’t particularly like this analogy, because /r/changemyview isn’t operating in a country where an occupying army was bombing weddings a few years earlier.
But this goes back to the problem at hand. People have their priors (my bots are so sick nasty that nobody can detect them / my liberal government was so woke and cool that nobody could possibly fail to love it) and then build their biases up around them like armor (any coordinated effort to expose my bots is cheating! / anyone who prefers the new government must be brainwashed!)
And the Bayesian Reasoning model fixates on the notion that there are only ever a discrete predefined series of choices and uniform biases that the participant must navigate within. No real room for nuance or relativism.
Wow. That’s really fucking stupid.
I don’t think so. Yeah the researchers broke the rules of the subreddit but it’s not like every other company that uses AI for advertising, promotional purposes, propaganda, and misinformation will adhere to those rules.
The mods and community should not assume that just because the rules say no AI does not mean that people won’t use it for nefarious purposes. While this study doesn’t really add anything new we didn’t already know or assume, it does highlight how we should be vigilant and cautious about what we see on the Internet.
Reread the rule @TheTechnician27@lemmy.world listed; it’s not a rule against posting AI, it’s a rule against accusing people of posting AI, the very thing they were trying to prompt people to do.
So, if nobody accuses them, is it because nobody noticed, or is it because nobody wanted to break the no-accusing rule? It’s impossible to tell, which makes the results of the study worthless.
And even if they did accuse, mods would have removed the comments.
Ah well it would appear I should have read the original comment with a little more attention
Reddit has great rules…
Can you explain your complaint a bit more? I’m trying to figure out just what you mean with your comment, but all I can see out of it is “reddit sucks”. Which… yeah, but in this instance why?
They overpolice opinion that could be true. Can’t even squeak out a fart without someone banning you.
Who is “they” in this situation?
Reddit, moderators, the community: you name it.
So nothing specific at all just, kind of lashing out for the fuck of it by latching on to some random nonsense.
Biggest advice anyone can give you right now: let it go. Reddit can’t hurt you anymore. Constantly obsessing about it, no matter how much it does suck, will only drag you down a spiral of contempt and despair.
Most of all, dont drag others down that spiral either. We’ve got much bigger issues than some reddit mods or whatever abusing power.
The post title is know the Reddit rules, so ridiculing them is apropos to the topic.
This place could easily fall into the same trap if people ease up. 🤷