New Delhi, May 5 -- In a covert study that has ignited fierce legal and ethical debate, researchers from the University of Zurich deployed artificial intelligence bots to covertly influence discussions on Reddit, without informing participants or securing consent. The experiment took place within the subreddit r/ChangeMyView, a platform dedicated to reasoned debates on divisive topics and followed by nearly four million users.

According to a report by404 Media, the AI agents posted over 1,700 comments while posing as genuine users, engaging in emotionally and politically charged conversations. Pseudonymous personas included a male rape survivor downplaying trauma and a black man expressing criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement. No...