Why are AI bots posting links for Altman's World ID?

An investigation into the AI bots that appeared on Reddit after they partnered with OpenAI.

Key points:

  • The bots post a lot of links to products and services which appear to be adverts but are not marked as such.
  • Many of these links are for Sam Altman’s World ID.
  • Reddit added terms on AI advertising to their business page around the time the bots appeared.
  • The bots also make up stories about dead mothers, depression, drug addiction, eating disorders, medical conditions and mental health issues.
  • scytale@piefed.zipEnglish
    12·
    14 hours ago

    I go there for specific sports subs and my city sub, and I sometimes check the home page just to see what’s going on. There are a lot of posts that look innocent, then usually someone will comment “If <company> was smart, they would use this to market their product”, then the next reply is always “they just did” or “look again”. At least some people notice, but that’s not stopping those posts from reaching the front page and getting a ton of engagement.

    Examples:

    • A video of a UPS driver properly relocating packages left haphazardly (and tossed carelessly) by the Fedex driver and USPS driver who coincidentally delivered packages earlier on the same day.
    • Video of the burger king CEO actually taking a huge bite of his burger. It was made to look like the video was taken randomly, and the post title didn’t have any indication that it was made to ride the wave with the trending mcdonald’s CEO. And there were tons of comments suspiciously talking about BK’s burgers being better anyway, etc.
    • Feel good and made-me-smile videos that suspiciously have branding prominently displayed on an item in the video and comments that talk about the product.