While the AI frenzy is not slowing down any time soon, companies are approaching artificial intelligence even more aggressively than before. With the widespread application of the technology, it becomes harder to ensure ethical usage of it. One such implementation has raised eyebrows, where recent reports reveal that researchers of a university conducted an AI experiment on Reddit that was not only unauthorized but quite unethical and one that could have legal implications as well. This usage highlights the need for stringent transparency and protecting user privacy when deploying the technology.
Researchers at a university are under fire after conducting an AI experiment on Reddit users without their consent
With AI being used in varied institutions in multiple applications, there seems to be a growing concern regarding the ethical deployment of AI in these platforms. Such has been the case with a recent covert AI experiment that has sparked quite a discussion and invited a lot of criticism. Researchers from the University of Zurich have conducted an unethical AI experiment on Reddit without the user's knowledge or consent.
The researchers used advanced language models to create AI bots that would have different personas and engage in discussions on the subreddit Change My View. The bots would pose as either trauma counselors or even survivors of physical harassment to evaluate how AI could be used to influence perspectives or even opinions. The AI bots would study user's past responses and other engagements to create tailored responses. This experiment did not involve informing Reddit or its users; thus, it was a major ethical breach and raised concerns regarding psychological manipulation.
The University of Zurich informed the subreddit moderators after the experiment was carried out. Although they admitted that the team had violated the community rules by using AI bots without disclosing it, this only invited more criticism as to the overall unethical nature of the study. The university disclosed the experiment in the following way:
Over the past few months, we used multiple accounts to posts published on CMV. Our experiment assessed LLM’s persuasiveness in an ethical scenario, where people ask for arguments against views they hold. In commenting, we did not disclose that an AI was used to write comments, as this would have rendered the study unfeasible. While we did not write any comments ourselves, we manually reviewed each comment posted to ensure they were not harmful. We recognize that our experiment broke the community rules against AI-generated comments and apologize. We believe, however, that given the high societal importance of this topic, it was crucial to conduct a study of this kind, even if it meant disobeying the rules.
While the researchers acknowledged the breach, they justified it, suggesting that it had great societal value and relevance. The AI bots adopted some highly charged personas, including claims of being trauma counselors and specializing in abuse, or even using the AI to claim poor medical treatment in a hospital. This is alarming not only because of the highly provocative personas opted for but also because of the potential harm it would have done to individuals who believed they were involved in real, human conversations.
Moderators of the platform strongly condemned the AI experiment and labeled it a serious ethical violation. They also pointed out how OpenAI was able to conduct a study that involved the influence of the LLM models without involving deception or exploitation. The researchers did, in fact, cross lines, especially with the individuals feeling targeted and being part of an experiment that they never agreed to participate in the first place.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
