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Zurich University AI Researchers Ran Secret Test On Reddit Users
The undisclosed experiment prompted backlash from moderators and a firm response from Reddit’s legal team.
Researchers from the University of Zurich quietly ran a months-long experiment on Reddit’s r/changemyview (CMV), using AI-generated comments to test how persuasive large language models (LLMs) could be. The subreddit, home to 3.8 million users, invites debate on controversial opinions — but moderators say the AI replies crossed ethical lines.
“The CMV Mod Team needs to inform the CMV community about an unauthorized experiment conducted by researchers from the University of Zurich on CMV users,” moderators wrote, calling the study “psychological manipulation”.
The experiment involved AI-generated responses written under fake identities — including a trauma counselor, a sexual assault survivor, and a “Black man opposed to Black Lives Matter”. These posts were crafted to sound human and emotionally resonant. Some remain accessible via an archive maintained by 404 Media.
The researchers went further by tailoring AI replies using personal information inferred from users’ Reddit history — details like age, gender, and political leaning, all generated using another AI model.
Moderators say this violated subreddit rules, including bans on undisclosed AI use and bots. They’ve filed a formal complaint and asked the university to halt publication of the research.
Reddit responded strongly. Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee called the study “deeply wrong on both a moral and legal level”. Reddit has since banned the accounts involved and is improving its ability to detect fake or AI-generated content.
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“We have banned all accounts associated with the University of Zurich research effort,” Lee said. “We’re also working with the moderation team to ensure all related content has been removed”.
The researchers maintain the study was approved by their university’s ethics board and claim it offers valuable insight into how AI could be misused at scale. “We believe the potential benefits of this research substantially outweigh its risks,” they wrote in a Reddit comment.
But CMV moderators pushed back. “People do not come here to discuss their views with AI or to be experimented upon,” they wrote. “People who visit our sub deserve a space free from this type of intrusion”.
News
Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict
Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.
Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.
“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.
The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.
The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.
Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.
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The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.
So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.
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