AI Is Eroding What Reddit Says Is Its Greatest Competitive Advantage | Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says that Reddit’s human-led communities are what set the company apart. AI bots, however, are threatening that advantage by taking over forums and comments.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-reddit-business-competitive-advantage-human-interaction-2025-5
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“Reddit is one of the [last places on the internet](https://archive.is/o/zrexu/https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-mainstream-google-traffic-stock-revenue-human-users-2024-11) where posts and comments don’t feel like an endless pit of AI slop. But that is starting to change, and it’s threatening what Reddit says is its competitive advantage.
“Just a few years ago, adding Reddit to the end of your search query felt novel,” Huffman said in a Q3 earnings call in February. “Today, it’s a common way for people to find trusted information, recommendations, and advice.”
Some Reddit users say they are fed up with what they see as a “proliferation of LLM bots in the last 10 months.”
On Monday, Huffman said in a Reddit post that the company would start using third parties to “keep Reddit human.” Huffman said that Reddit’s “strength is its people” and that “unwelcome AI in communities is a serious concern.”
It’s funny because when they did the big API lockdown that killed off all the actually usable reddit apps, one of the reasons they gave was that it would help them control bots – but there are so many more bots now, it’s ridiculous.
u/spez doesn’t care. He got his IPO bag. Twitter is nothing but a mass of bots and nazis and still generates money, if reddit turns into the same thing so what. There are easy steps that could be taken against bots tomorrow if they cared about addressing the issue, but they don’t. Bots make the site look more busy and that means more advertising dollars. And now that its public, shareholder profits are literally the only thing they care about. Enshittification, baby.
Self post communities like AITA are dead. It’s always been rage bait but now it’s AI rage bait which is somehow even worse. Those communities have a big audience that just pretends it’s real for entertainment and gets mad at anyone who ruins the illusion. I honestly miss when it was people practicing their creative writing because at least that takes some skill.
I’ve even seen a new trend of commenters who spend all their time dunking on people with AI and then literally everyone claps and sings their praises. Then they’ll be like “thanks, I spent a lot of time getting the prompt just right 😏“ Just kill me now it’s too cringe.
AI has had the strange effect of “separating” the internet. So much so that it feels exactly the same as irl.
The number of “believable” people has dropped significantly and there’s a much smaller number of commenters that seem valid to me.
Not just here, but on all social media.
Followers that seem like they’d have absolutely no interest in what you post, comments that vaguely sound interested in what you posted but comes across as not having actually read/watched it.
I remember when 2010’s reddit had meme posters that was actually recognized across multiple reddits for ‘that one thing’. It may come across lame now, but there was a feeling of sincerity in injokes known across the site. That doesn’t exist anymore, there’s no bigger picture on sites like these.
Everything now seems manufactured, optimized and ragebaiting and constantly political. All engaging, but all of it feels the same, nothing is memorable. Just tiring.
is there really no way to stop Ai from taking over reddit?
there HAS to be some sorta technology that can verify if you’re a human before allowing a post or comment, or even making an account.
Reddit is great in some communities. But also cringy and biased in most.
Honestly its at the point now its refreshing when i see someone being a spaz during discussions. At least its more likely theres an actual human with emotion behind the shitty posts
Honestly, I’d prefer a bot over most mods. So many of them are piss poor custodians of their little fiefdoms.
dont forget moderation. in the last months i’ve been moderated more than in the last like 10 years. and its always for the dumbest things. I got banned on interestingasfuck for saying, this video is old, to someone who said, did this just happen?
So this is just the pre-ploy before the ploy-poly where reddit has “verified users” that are far right bots. Twitter, rinse, repeat.
Before I even pay attention to a post or a comment, I always look to see how old the account is. I generally ignore anything under three years (even though bots have been around forever)
It’s all pro China propaganda bots now. Proof? See how many downvotes i get.
Surely the fact that just being members of one sub gets you band from like 30others sugest that it could possibly be related to the mods!!
But they will never talk in state of the art memes, because the memes switch faster than the AIs get trained on it!!!
I soon will be an Ex-Redditor because of this. 50% is bots and 45% is AI slop