Reddit uncovers secret AI persuasion experiment

PLUS: AI helps reveal hidden cause of Alzheimer's disease

AuthorAuthor

Zach Mink & Rowan Cheung
April 30, 2025

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Reddit users just discovered they were lab rats in an unauthorized AI experiment, with Zurich researchers deploying chatbots across the /ChangeMyMind subreddit that racked up thousands of upvotes.

With the bot responses proving 6x more persuasive than human comments and going completely undetected, it’s clear our online spaces have never been more vulnerable — and AI’s ability to shift public discourse is only getting stronger.

In today’s AI rundown:

  • Secret AI experiment on Reddit users

  • Meta’s new AI assistant, Llama API access

  • Add OpenAI's o4-mini model to your projects

  • AI reveals hidden cause of Alzheimer's

  • 4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

REDDIT & UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH

Image source: o3 / The Rundown

The Rundown: Reddit just revealed that researchers from the University of Zurich conducted an unauthorized AI experiment on its r/changemyview community, using chatbots that engaged in debates about sensitive topics to test persuasion capabilities.

The details:

  • The researchers deployed AI responses across more than 1,700 comments, with bots impersonating identities including trauma survivors and counselors.

  • A separate AI system was used to analyze users' posting histories to capture personal details like age, gender, and political views for targeted responses.

  • The experiment’s results, though not peer-reviewed, revealed that targeted AI responses were 6x more persuasive than the average human comment.

  • Reddit's Chief Legal Officer announced legal action against the researchers, calling the experiment "deeply wrong on both moral and legal levels."

  • The University of Zurich has also halted publication of the research results and launched an internal investigation.

Why it matters: Ethical violations aside, the fact that these AI-generated comments went both unnoticed and garnered major support shows how easily coordinated bots can influence public discourse. While social media already had this problem, AI is set to massively scale both the quality and quantity of sophisticated manipulation tactics.

TOGETHER WITH GAMMA

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Gamma makes it easy to:

  • Generate professional-quality presentations instantly from just a prompt

  • Transform boring proposals into visuals that clients actually read

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Visit gamma.app to experience the tool that is creating 700,000 presentations daily.

META

Image source: Meta

The Rundown: Meta just made a series of AI announcements at its first LlamaCon developers event, including a standalone app for its Meta AI assistant with upgraded personalization, a new Llama API preview, and AI security tools.

The details:

  • The new app leverages Llama 4, learns user preferences, and accesses profile info (if permitted) to offer more personalized and context-aware responses.

  • It also emphasizes voice interaction alongside text input, image generation, and a social “Discover” feed for prompts.

  • Meta also released the Llama API as a limited free preview, allowing developers to build using the latest Llama 4 Scout and 4 Maverick models.

  • New security tools include Llama Guard 4 and LlamaFirewall, with a Defenders Program giving select partners access to AI-enabled security evaluation tools.

  • Mark Zuckerberg appeared on the Dwarkesh Podcast ahead of LlamaCon, hitting on topics including open source, Chinese competition, AGI, and more.

Why it matters: Llama’s over 1B downloads already show it’s a key cog in many users’ AI experiences, with a personalization factor from Meta’s data and app ecosystem that is hard to match. The new API brings a two-pronged approach to Llama — providing capable models for the masses and empowering builders to create with them.

AI TRAINING

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use OpenAI’s o4-mini API to integrate powerful AI reasoning capabilities into your existing projects, with a low cost and a high throughput.

Step-by-step:

  1. Obtain an API key from OpenAI’s platform by creating a new secret key in your account dashboard.

  2. Set up your environment in Google Colab and install the OpenAI library with pip install openai.

  3. Implement the API call by importing the OpenAI client, setting your API key, and creating a completion with the o4-mini model.

  4. Customize the content prompt for your needs and create reusable functions to integrate the model's capabilities throughout your project workflow.

Pro tip: You can also reduce costs during development by testing with shorter outputs and fewer API calls before scaling up your implementation. Here is a starting template, just make sure to add your own API key.

PRESENTED BY SALESFORCE

The Rundown: Dreamforce 2025 — the world’s largest, most trusted AI event — returns on Oct. 14 with three days of next-level innovation and real-world inspiration you can bring back to your business.

Here’s what you’ll experience:

  • AI agent building alongside product experts with Salesforce’s Agentforce

  • 50+ visionary and product keynotes

  • 1,200+ breakout sessions across every product, role, and industry

  • 150+ hands-on trainings and 240+ peer roundtables

AI RESEARCH

Image source: Zhong Lab

The Rundown: UC San Diego researchers just used AI to discover a surprising new cause of Alzheimer's disease, identifying a gene's previously unknown function — while also discovering a potential treatment that could be taken as a simple pill.

The details:

  • Scientists used AI imaging to discover that a common protein (PHGDH) has a hidden ability to interfere with brain cell functions.

  • This interference leads to early signs of Alzheimer's, something traditional lab methods had missed for years.

  • The team found that an existing compound, NCT-503, can stop the harmful protein behavior while allowing it to continue its normal functions in the body.

  • The compound showed promising results in mouse trials, with treated animals demonstrating improvements in both memory and anxiety-related symptoms.

  • Unlike existing infusion treatments, the new drug could be taken as a pill, and prevents damage before it occurs rather than trying to reverse it.

Why it matters: Uncovering a hidden role for a protein scientists have studied for decades shows just how much remains invisible to human eyes alone — with AI-guided advances set to fast-track both medical discovery and drug development for the world’s most complex disorders and diseases.

QUICK HITS

  • 🗂️ UiPath - Project Manager

  • 🎉 Runway - Event Marketing Manager

  • 🧠 Meta - AI Research Scientist

  • 🤝 Glean - Business Development Representative

Elon Musk said Grok 3.5 launches next week to SuperGrok users, adding it’s the first to “accurately answer technical questions about rocket engines or electrochemistry.”

Sam Altman announced that OpenAI has officially rolled back GPT-4o following its personality issues, with broader fixes and findings being released later this week.

Mastercard introduced Agent Pay, a new agentic payments program that enables AI agents to securely complete purchases, with Microsoft as its first major partner.

Yelp is testing a series of new AI features, including an AI-powered service that allows restaurants to field phone calls using an AI voice agent.

The Trump administration may soon replace the Biden-era AI chip export control system, potentially moving to licensing deals with specific countries over broad tiers.

Google announced that its podcast-generating Audio Overviews feature is expanding to over 50 languages for easy creation of multilingual content.

COMMUNITY

Join our next workshop this Friday, May 2nd, at 4 PM EST with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to use Google NotebookLM to improve your research, studying, and teaching.

RSVP here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.

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Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason—The Rundown’s editorial team

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