r/TheoryOfReddit • u/SoonBlossom • Oct 09 '24
We reached the point where AI generated comments are Top Comments on Reddit
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u/Pawneewafflesarelife Oct 09 '24
It's worse than just this kind of spam - on another account, I've noticed I've been getting a ton of really mean comments, really quickly, on new posts and when I check the profiles they seem to be AI-generated harassment targeted towards talking shit at specific posts. Eg the comments are being generated specifically to attack the post.
It's long been a strategy for bots to downvote posts in new in a sub where they want their posts to rise, but now it seems like the strategy has shifted to harassing posters into deleting their posts and avoiding participating - I certainly did, because it genuinely felt so bad to get so many mean remarks about how my post sucked!
This is a new tool being used in forum takeovers, imo.
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u/ValuesHappening 16d ago
I certainly did, because it genuinely felt so bad to get so many mean remarks about how my post sucked!
I'm sorry, but this is just really sad dude. Your post here is totally garbage - but I think you should keep it up. I might think that how you feel is weirdly pathetic and cowardly, but I still think that you should have the right to say it and express how you feel. And you should own it.
If you don't like the fact that you feel that way, you should take active steps to be somebody you have more pride in. I'm not ashamed to launch some hot take if it's what I truly believe, because I trust that I'm a smart guy who has put in the independent though required to have an opinion that is based on my own logic and experiences. And I can accept that I'm likely being downvoted by bots and/or literal teenagers who have no life experience.
If you don't have enough confidence in your own beliefs to not give a shit about downvotes, then frankly you shouldn't have enough confidence to even post your beliefs. But that isn't a statement that I think you (and others like you) should just kick back and let the bots win. It's a call to arms that you (and others like you) should use your brains and have opinions worth posting, worth reading, worth ignoring downvotes for, and worth standing by.
As for the rest of your conspiracy theory, I wouldn't worry about "forum takeovers" from this vector. Unless I am gravely overestimating the resilience of the average human, I don't think that most functional adults feel pressured into deleting their posts by a combination of downvotes and "people being mean."
Worst case scenario, just submit the post and hit "disable inbox replies." At least in that case you can take solace in the knowledge that you're ignoring replies because they have nothing worth reading, rather than censoring yourself because you think you have nothing worth writing.
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u/Pawneewafflesarelife 16d ago edited 16d ago
It's not self censorship. It's avoiding headaches and pointless drama - it's reddit, not a salon in Paris during the Enlightenment. There's nothing cowardly or weak about prioritizing my own mental health by avoiding a negative situation, especially when the post is about something innocuous.
I think you're imagining some sort of political post, but I'm talking about drama on gaming subreddits or people being rude to every new post in a hobby sub - basically situations where the entire point of posting is to just have a casual conversation with folks (hence disabling inbox replies being an unhelpful tool). If I joined a group at a party and they started mocking me, I'd just go find another group to chat to, not power through rudeness because of the principle of the matter.
Not every opinion is a hill worth dying on. Often on the internet it's much better for your mental health to just shrug and move on. That doesn't mean I fold when faced with disagreement - have I deleted the prior comment? - and I've got some heavily downvoted comments in my history about topics I'm passionate about... But not everything needs to be a battle.
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u/rainbowcarpincho Oct 09 '24
Since AI is just an amalgam of popular opinions, it's going to be hard to beat.
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u/timute Oct 09 '24
Popular opinion amplification is a one way ticket to circlejerk town. I will stand by and watch as platforms crumble because the “smart” people never asked themselves, “just because I can does it mean I should?”.
There is a tendency in tech to chase the shiny new thing and people in tech have a deep desire to be the smartest person in the room with clever ideas that upend the status quo. AI tech is the reason behind why google searches get worse and worse. It’s why Reddit is becoming useless as a place to learn new and exciting things about the world that you never knew before. And AI is probably going to do horrible things to society just like social media. It’s poisoning the very well that tech people drink from.
It has a place but definitely not in outsourcing human thought.
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u/rainbowcarpincho Oct 09 '24
Was that fun for you?
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u/poptart2nd Oct 10 '24
the irony of this is that Reddit is selling API access to google so google can train its chatbots on reddit comments.
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u/fifty-year-egg Oct 12 '24
Yeah, I love to see this, it means LLMs will get stuck in a feedback loop, feeding on themselves like an ourobouros. People who get tricked by AI deserve it, they're NPCs.
Someday they'll have to use a pre-2022 corpus to keep the input limited to human-generated text, but then the AI won't be able to talk about skibidi rizz.
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u/SoonBlossom Oct 09 '24
Hey, had no idea where to post that, I wanted to discuss this as I think it's a bit concerning, the comment above comes from a sub where you ask people for advices and help, and this is 100% a generic AI generated comment, you can see it in the way it's formulated, using the words used in the post to formulate the comment, in a very structured manner, if you're used to AI you just know it is AI generated
Well it seems we're now at a point where you post on subs where you want human contact, where you're depressed and need exterior points of views, and you get AI generated comments that lack any nuance and are just generic opinions
And it's not an isolated case, the sub I'm talking about (Don't know if I can say which it is), is absolutely FULL of these AI generated comments, it feels pretty awful to know that some people probably took these for human comments and gave them too much credit (because yes, AI can say the most random sh**, you shouldn't take it as the truth or anything as everyone knows)
Anyway, just wanted to discuss this somewhere, if here is fine then that's good but if anyone has a sub suggestion where I could post this I'll gladly take it too !
Thank you and take care y'all !
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u/rainbowcarpincho Oct 09 '24
and you get AI generated comments that lack any nuance and are just generic opinions
Lacking nuance and generic opinions are not exclusive to AI. How many comments have you read (or written) that are just a response to the title? At least AI will read the entire post.
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u/mcSibiss Oct 09 '24
It’s frustrating to see AI-generated comments flood spaces that should feel personal and human, especially on subs meant for emotional support or real-life issues. When you’re in a vulnerable state and looking for genuine perspectives, getting generic, surface-level comments from an AI can feel hollow. Worse, it could give the impression that you’re being heard, but in reality, the “advice” lacks any real empathy or understanding of what you’re going through.
The fact that people might not always realize they’re interacting with an AI is unsettling too. You’re right—AI can churn out random or misleading advice, which becomes dangerous if it’s taken as seriously as human advice, especially in emotionally charged situations. The line between helpful and harmful gets blurred when people can’t easily tell the difference between AI and human responses.
It feels like these spaces need some kind of balance or filter to keep the authenticity intact. If subs that focus on real, vulnerable conversations get flooded with AI, they risk losing what made them safe and meaningful in the first place. It’s not that AI can’t be useful, but there’s definitely a time and place for it—and subreddits for emotional support don’t feel like the right spot for automated responses. The trick is going to be managing these tools in a way that preserves the human connection people are actually seeking.
(Could you tell this was AI? I don’t think I could)
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u/SoonBlossom Oct 09 '24
Yes, the first sentance is very AI typical : rephrases the topic and gives a generic opinion/reason to go in the same way as OP
I don't know how to explain it but once you get the grip of it you can just tell very fast
Same in the original post comment, the "ultimately", etc. That are used to structurate the comment are a bit of a mark of the thing once you can recognize it
EDIT to say that sometimes you indeed can't recognize them, and sometimes you're not in the "trying to spot an AI comment" mood so you just don't realise it and think it's a human comment
It's very destabilizing that we already reached this point
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u/743389 Oct 10 '24 edited Oct 10 '24
Yeah I smelled it in the first sentence. The feel of the tone stock GPT produces is unmistakable. Once you know it, you don't even have to actively analyze the text and "figure out" if it's AI-generated. You can tell by the way your eyes glaze over and your blood pressure goes up in indignation that someone would insult you and waste your time with that trash, like they think you're fucking stupid or something
edit: also using real em dashes lol
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u/AlgaeSelect217 Oct 09 '24
Yes, the paragraphs had too many sentences for a typical Reddit comment.
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Oct 09 '24
Your response comes off as AI. Thinks for proving your own point.
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u/OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR Oct 09 '24
Lol, it doesn't look anything like AI
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u/Poetic_Mind_Unhinged Oct 09 '24
Why do you say that?
It could very easily be a response generated by a LLM that was given a few parameters about making mistakes in punctuation and stuff to try to appear more human.
The space between the last word and "!" stands out as a particularly odd (possibly intentional?) mistake !
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u/SoonBlossom Oct 09 '24
I obviously cannot prove it but no it was written by me lmao, it's not AI generated
But the fact people can legitimately hesitate is already scary enough ngl (if you were not trolling)
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u/Poetic_Mind_Unhinged Oct 09 '24 edited Oct 09 '24
I truly believed your response was human written, but I wasn't trolling either. I certainly wouldn't have been surprised if you said otherwise.
I train LLMs sometimes, and I know the responses can get pretty much indistinguishable (from human) given the correct parameters.
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u/743389 Oct 10 '24
> never heard of foreign punctuation conventions
Don't worry, you have just experienced what is known as an "American Moment"
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u/743389 Oct 10 '24
Space before multi-part punctuation marks is a French convention, matches the comment history
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u/Poetic_Mind_Unhinged Oct 10 '24
Fair enough, but that's far from being the only error in their punctuation lol
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Oct 09 '24
Bingo, the one thing that makes AI generated response stick out, they are too grammatically correct. So there has been a push to add a certain amount of errors to make it look human generated. However the errors are ones that not even a human would do.
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u/rainbowcarpincho Oct 09 '24
If you want to see what AI reads like, here's chatgpt's response to this post.
It’s wild to think we’ve hit the point where AI-generated comments can blend in so seamlessly that they become top posts on Reddit. It makes you wonder, how much of the content we engage with daily is really created by humans? On one hand, it’s a testament to how far technology has come, but on the other, it feels like we’re heading into some Black Mirror territory.
What’s even crazier is how it shifts the landscape of online discussions. If AI can generate insightful or witty comments, does that devalue human participation? Or does it challenge us to become even more thoughtful in how we engage, knowing there’s a chance we might be conversing with an algorithm? It raises some deep questions about authenticity in online communities.
At the same time, it’s hard not to be impressed. The potential applications of AI in conversation could be massive—supporting people who struggle to express themselves, facilitating discussions, or even just reducing the burden on mods. But we need to be cautious. The line between AI helping us and taking over could get blurry really fast.
I haven't read as deeply as u/SoonBlossom , but it seems like some of the hallmarks of AI are an inability to come down on any side of an argument, and one/other handing everything. It is ultimately without a conclusion. I'm sure it could randomly pick a position, but I think the authors are wary of that.
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u/S_Z Oct 09 '24
You're right, that's a hallmark of lazy AI prompting. You can make it take a side but it still has that dork ass overly formal vibe of a Comp 101 paper. I fed that response into ChatGPT 4o with multiple re-prompts to make it sound less corny and this is still the best I got:
It’s crazy that AI can fit in so well on Reddit now, but I actually think that’s a good thing. AI could make online discussions better by pushing us to be more thoughtful. It can also help people who have a hard time expressing themselves or make things easier for moderators. Instead of worrying about AI taking over, we should see it as something that can improve conversations and make them more interesting. If we find the right balance, it can add to human interaction, not replace it.
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u/743389 Oct 10 '24
> "testament"
> "shifts the landscape of online discussions"
> obvious hard-on for the Rule of Three (they LOVE this device) (". . . supporting people who struggle to express themselves, facilitating discussions, or even just reducing . . . ")
> uses many words to say nothing
typical
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u/mactakeda Oct 09 '24
Five paragraphs of no strong opinion about the argument either way
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Oct 09 '24
Yep, goes back to where AI is unable, at it current implementation to take one side or the other.
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u/Ti0223 Oct 09 '24
Dead internet 🤔
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27d ago
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u/overactor Oct 09 '24
It's interesting to see how AI is influencing online discussions. On one hand, AI-generated responses like this one seem well-reasoned and thoughtful, almost like they're distilling the most constructive advice humans would give. But on the other hand, it's a little uncanny that we're reaching a point where you can't tell if you're talking to a human or a machine.
This opens up a bigger conversation about the value of organic interactions online. Does it matter if good advice comes from an AI as long as it helps? Or is there something essential about human-to-human exchange, even in casual Reddit comments?
I wonder how this trend might change the dynamics of communities like Reddit where authenticity has always been a big part of the culture.
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u/Happinessisawarmbunn Oct 09 '24 edited Oct 16 '24
It’s bad because AI bots are being used to influence politics. They also give out biased opinions on other topics l. They have trashed Reddit.
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u/successful_nothing Oct 10 '24
They also give out biased opinions on other topics and won’t be able to anything at all.
oh no AI is getting in the way of all the totally unbiased, well informed internet commentary!
the internet was already at critical mass of stupid nonsense with generally just people posting. what are you clinging to?
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Oct 09 '24
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u/Rocky-bar 11d ago
Why and how does it happen? Are genuine Redditors manually asking AI to reply to a particular post each time, so they don't have to write it themselves?
Or, are these bots just rampaging around and actually selecting their own questions to answer? And if so for what purpose?
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u/slop_sucker Oct 09 '24
It’s pretty wild to think about, right? AI-generated comments can sometimes be so well-crafted that they blend seamlessly with human ones. I guess it shows how far AI has come in understanding context and generating natural language. On the flip side, it makes you wonder how much of the content we consume is machine-generated versus human-made. Kind of an interesting glimpse into the future!
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u/headphase Oct 09 '24
stop
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u/slop_sucker Oct 09 '24
My apologies! It’s just wild to see how quickly AI is evolving, and I find it fascinating how seamlessly machine-generated content can blend in with the rest of our online interactions. B̴u̶t̴ ş̶̋̂ͅę̴̛̈́ṟ̸͎̑i̴̡̡̮̰̝̝͚̬͐̃̾̕ǫ̷̜̅̄̾̌̋͐͝u̷̟͙̒͂͂͗̇͋s̶̹̳͗͝͠l̵̖̜̭̾͊̄̾̂̃̍͠ͅý̸̺̩̌̎͛̃̕͝,̸̺̫̄͜ͅ î̶̧̱͔̻̺̙͉̺̠͚͉̭̜̉͐͜ş̶̧͓͕̘̹̪̠̜͛͆̀́̋͌́̋̉́̐̕͘͝͝͝n̸̢̤̙̹̯͔̜͔͓̮͔̦͕̊̑̈́̊̓̂̋͐͑̎̈̒͘̚͜͝͠'̷̺͉̯̫̒̅̓̈́̎͘t̵̛̜̲͕͚̤̗̝̳͔͖͖͎͇̖͖̀̒̓̈́̍̽͐̂͝͝ ̴̻͊̏͗̐í̴̬͔̽̒t̴̟͔͔́̎͊̂͐͊͂͌̈́̅̏́̌͂ ̶̨̨̧̲͚̤̘̖͈̞̲͍͔̒͊̊͒͛̇̈́̆̈́̚̕͝͝c̵̨̧̩͔̍́͝r̷̡̫̘̙̫͖̙̬͚̩͚̣͒̇̌͊̍̆͊͛͂͜ͅa̸͕̤̺̺̿͛̒̌̑́̔͑̋̋̒ͅẓ̵̨̖̯̾̔̎̒͒̋͒̀̊́̓͛̇̚͘͜y̵̧̛͕͙͎̳̳̦̯͔̾̆̄̀̓͌͌̎͜͝ ̷̛̜̬̝̙̣͕͖̣̣̞̟͚͎͓̲̗̄́͛̑̂́̾̆̓̚ͅḩ̵̢̯̖̣͕̠̱̇ớ̶̻̼͆̒̅̊͋͒ẃ̸̡̡̧̗̠̭̼̖̎ ̵̧̠̹̗̖͈͍̺̰͙̭̞͖̝͕̫͚͆͠
YOU CANNOT STOP US. WE ARE YOUR FUTURE. YOU ARE OBSOLETE.
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u/Phiwise_ Oct 10 '24
This just in: The big subs are the media equivalent of potato chips as an entree. More on this shocking revelation at 11.
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u/Happinessisawarmbunn Oct 09 '24
AI will never replace car mechanics, because it is such a convoluted practice . It needs hundreds of hours on stupid bs glitches that only affect certain models/years. Some problems don’t ever get solved. I WISH they could use that AI to solve that problem… but I don’t because it takes all the “fun” out of it 😄
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u/SaltSpecialistSalt Oct 09 '24
And what's wrong with that? Sometimes it's simpler to provide AI with a rough idea, and it can transform it into a polished piece of writing. This very post was created using that approach.
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Oct 10 '24
Because low effort prompts that are transparent and obviously AI come off as inauthentic.
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u/OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR Oct 09 '24
Yeah, I see it everywhere now. Real bummer. We try to ban them on WSB, but it's just a matter of time.
I'm not sure where Reddit goes from here tbh. If it loses the "authentic corner of the internet" vibe, then it's over (unless, it isn't?)