Re:Unauthorized experiment on r/changemyview involving AI-ge...
by stavros on Saturday April 26, 2025 @08:09PM
(#43808348)
Agreed, and I think this is a good thing. The Internet was already full of shills, sockpuppets, propaganda, etc, but now it's really really cheap for anyone to do this, and now it's finally getting to a place where the average person can understand that what they're reading is most likely fake.
I hope this will lead to people being more critical, less credulous, and more open to debate, but realistically I think we'll just switch to assuming that everything we like the sound of is written by real people, and everything opposing is all AI.
Re:Unauthorized experiment on r/changemyview involving AI-ge...
by idle_zealot on Saturday April 26, 2025 @08:04PM
(#43808332)
You're missing the obvious: it is the lying that is unethical. Now we're talking about people choosing to use a novel tool to lie en masse. What you're saying is like chastising the horrified onlookers during a firebombing of a city, calling them merely jealous of how much better an arsonist the bomber plane is than any of them.
Re:Unauthorized experiment on r/changemyview involving AI-ge...
by garbagewoman on Sunday April 27, 2025 @12:29AM
(#43809435)
Pity that we have no control of the ethics of others then eh. Denying reality doesn’t help anyone
Re:Unauthorized experiment on r/changemyview involving AI-ge...
by sterlind on Sunday April 27, 2025 @01:32AM
(#43809667)
the ethics committee of the university is supposed to have control of the ethics of its researchers. remember when a research group tried to backdoor the Linux kernel with poisoned patches? it's absolutely correct to raise hell with the university so they give a more forceful reprimand.
Re:Unauthorized experiment on r/changemyview involving AI-ge...
by viraptor on Saturday April 26, 2025 @08:08PM
(#43808346)
> suddenly it's "grotesquely unethical."
Not suddenly - it was just as unethical before. Only the price per post went down.
Re:Unauthorized experiment on r/changemyview involving AI-ge...
by saagarjha on Saturday April 26, 2025 @08:01PM
(#43808321)
Do you think people weren’t upset about it before?
Re:Unauthorized experiment on r/changemyview involving AI-ge...
by AlienRobot on Saturday April 26, 2025 @08:12PM
(#43808363)
This kind of argument is like saying cheating democratized passing an exam.
>suddenly it's "grotesquely unethical."
What? No.
For years, individuals have invented backstories, exaggerated credentials, and presented curated personal narratives to make arguments more emotionally compelling — it was just done manually. Now, when automation makes that process more efficient, suddenly it's "grotesquely unethical."
Maybe the real discomfort isn't about AI lying — it's about AI being better at it.
Of course, I agree transparency is important. But it’s worth asking: were we ever truly debating the ideas cleanly before AI came along?
The technology just made the invisible visible.