University of Zurich researchers secretly deployed AI bots to manipulate Reddit users’ opinions: digital persuaders that analyzed users’ personal histories, fabricated identities, & crafted arguments specifically designed to change minds. They succeeded spectacularly with persuasion rates 6x higher.

SS

The majority of reddit users are sheep who are already being manipulated by the media and the establishment.
They have no critical thinking skills.

OF COURSE they were easily swayed by AI … they believe everything they are told.

I was never interested in account histories, and I rarely participate in social media besides a few subs on here, but I recently had a few weird interactions in comments sections. I checked into one account history, and found that from 2014 up until some time in 2023, the account was a karma bot, posting the same sentence thousands of times to acquire karma – then the account suddenly began posting and commenting almost entirely on political subs. I found that this account seemed to have several peculiar interactions in comment threads – when I checked into the accounts with which the original account was interacting, lo and behold, the same template. Accounts that were initially karma bots suddenly became political activist accounts. One thing I definitely noticed is that each account focuses primarily on political topics, but they almost always have a subcategory (let’s call it a minor) – sports, cars, etc.