While the rise of AI has been portrayed as a great equaliser by the tech industry, another scary aspect of the new technology has also been the rise of spam. Social media platforms have often been filled with AI-generated content that has colloquially been termed ‘AI Slop’, and different platforms are already looking at steps to counter this threat.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, in a recent podcast, said that the social media platform is looking for new ways to ensure that it remains a space for genuine human connection. While he acknowledged that some AI use is acceptable on the platform, like non-native speakers using AI for translation or writing assistance, Huffman states that the priority of the platform is to ensure that a real person is actively driving the conversation.
Speaking on the TBPN podcast, Huffman said, “For us, Reddit is for humans. That is our platform, that is our product. It’s human connection and community.”
Huffman, while prioritising the idea of humanness and human verification, gave the metaphor of ‘ass in the seat’, meaning that the platform wants to guarantee an actual human is using Reddit instead of an AI agent.
Huffman on using Face ID and passkeys:
Huffman said that the most ‘lightweight’ tools to maintain authenticity on the platform are tools like passkeys and biometric technologies like Apple’s Face ID or Touch ID because they call for an inherent physical human action like looking directly at the screen or touching a fingerprint sensor.
“The most lightweight way (to prove authenticity) is with something like Face ID. Face ID or Touch ID, broadly, it’s in the family of technology called passkeys, which I actually didn’t appreciate about these a year ago. They actually require human presence,” Huffman said on the podcast.
“A human has to touch or do or look at something. That actually just proves that there’s a person there or gets you pretty far. I think that’s very lightweight and accepted. I think there are heavier versions like ID-checking services, which we have to use for regulations here or there,” he added.
Huffman also stressed that while Reddit wants to implement human verification, it also wants to maintain the promise of user anonymity.
“Reddit’s version is, is this a person? But we don’t want to know which person this is. That’s part of our promise for our users is, we don’t know your name, but we do want to know that you’re a person,” Huffman added.
