AI Marketing Bots Try to Appear Human on Reddit

Reddit is a powerful place where people talk about all kinds of stuff and seek answers to their neverending questions. But are you sure your conversation partner is a human? 

The presence of AI has been growing on the platform recently with services like ReplyGuy trying to infiltrate forums and sell all kinds of products to users. As spotted by 404 Media, ReplyGuy "mentions your product in conversations naturally" replying to somebody else's posts on various subreddits. 

If you decide to use its services, all you need to do is add the name of your company and a link. The bot then suggests keywords that "help the bot know what types of subreddits and tweets to look for and when to respond."

Although its creator Alexander Belogubov says ReplyGuy enters conversations naturally, some examples presented on its website might raise a couple of brows – it's just like with ChatGPT, the working is a little off, as if the AI tries too hard to mix with humans using elaborate structures and odd lead-ins at times.

Such tools appearing on Reddit are not surprising but a little alarming as when you open Reddit, you expect to see real people, not AI spies. Because the website is extremely popular in Google searches, ReplyGuy and others like it have higher chances of being seen on the first page of the results. This might lead to Reddit manipulation and lower trust, even though most of the accounts Belogubov has shown have been banned, according to 404 Media.

Reddit's spokesperson told the outlet that such manipulation breaks the site's rules and would be treated as spam.

What do you think about such marketing? Would you use it to promote your products? Read the original report here and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.