The bots are taking over

Endless Thread

WBUR

Reddit, Technology

4.2 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The bots are here to stay, and they're everywhere. The trouble is, learning how to spot them.

On this week's episode of Endless Thread, Ben and Amory discuss two stories from Reddit about undercover bots. First — is there such a thing as an easy tell for identifying bots? Second, what happens when internet users accept bots as fellow humans, only to discover the truth later?

Show Notes:

‘The Worst Internet-Research Ethics Violation I Have Ever Seen’ (The Atlantic)

OpenAI used this subreddit to test AI persuasion (Tech Crunch)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken,
0:03.6	a podcast from BU's Mayrota Institute that explores questions like,
0:08.3	Why are executives paid so much?
0:10.9	Do they deserve it?
0:12.2	Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:16.2	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:24.2	All right, now, I'm going to bring you a story.
0:28.0	Here's a story of a lampa honey.
0:30.6	Wait, I'm bringing you a story.
0:32.2	Didn't you say that you were going to be the Dresert?
0:34.1	No, you're going to be the Drizzer.
0:35.8	I'm the Amuse Bouch.
0:39.1	Did I not say that I would be the Amuse Bouch? And you would bring whatever you were going to bring. And then you said, I'll be the
0:42.9	appetizer, the salad, and the main course, which all of which does come after the Amoose Bush,
0:47.7	as you should know. I don't know. But great. Everybody's shaking their heads at me. The amuse bouch comes first.
0:55.1	It does.
0:55.4	The amuse bouch is.
0:57.0	Oh, yeah, it is.
0:57.7	It's like an appetizer.
0:58.5	The amusement of the tongue or the amusement of the bouch.
1:01.7	It's the amic, which is French for, the amusement of the bouch.
1:08.9	This is getting worse and worse.
	...

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