Reddit is in an “arms race” to guard its devoted on-line communities from a surge in synthetic intelligence-generated content material, with the authenticity of its huge repository of human interplay more and more priceless in coaching new AI-powered search instruments.
Chief govt Steve Huffman instructed the Monetary Instances that Reddit had “20 years of dialog about every little thing,” leaving the corporate with a profitable useful resource of private interplay.
This has allowed it to strike multimillion greenback partnerships with Google and OpenAI to coach their massive language fashions on its content material, as tech firms search for real-world knowledge that may enhance their generative AI merchandise.
However Huffman stated Reddit was now battling to make sure its customers keep on the middle of the social community. “The place the remainder of the web appears to be powered by or written by or summarized by AI, Reddit is distinctly human,” he stated. “It’s the place you go once you need to hear from individuals, their lived experiences, their views, their suggestions. Reddit is communities and human curation and dialog and authenticity.”
As Reddit turns into an more and more essential supply for LLMs, advertisers are responding with what one company chief described as a “large migration” to the platform.
A number of promoting and company executives talking throughout this month’s Cannes promoting pageant instructed the FT that manufacturers had been more and more exploring internet hosting a enterprise account and posting content material on Reddit to spice up the probability of their adverts showing within the responses of generative AI chatbots.
Nonetheless, Huffman warned in opposition to any firm searching for to sport the location with faux or AI-generated content material, with plans to herald strict verification checks to make sure that solely people can put up to its boards.
“For 20 years, we’ve been preventing individuals who have wished to be widespread on Reddit,” he stated. “We index very effectively into the various search engines. If you wish to present up in the various search engines, you attempt to do effectively on Reddit, and now the LLMs, it’s the identical factor. If you wish to be within the LLMs, you are able to do it via Reddit.”
