OpenAI Used Reddit to Test AI Persuasion Techniques

OpenAI's AI Reasoning Model Testing with Reddit

OpenAI leveraged the r/ChangeMyView subreddit as a testing ground to assess the persuasive capabilities of its artificial intelligence reasoning models.

This information was disclosed in a system card – a document detailing the functionality of an AI system – released alongside OpenAI’s new “reasoning” model, o3-mini, on Friday.

The r/ChangeMyView Subreddit as a Data Source

The r/ChangeMyView forum boasts millions of users who share their opinions and actively seek alternative perspectives on various topics.

Participants respond to these posts with reasoned arguments, aiming to demonstrate why the original poster’s viewpoint might be flawed.

This subreddit represents a valuable resource for technology companies like OpenAI, providing a wealth of high-quality, human-generated data suitable for training AI models.

How OpenAI Utilizes the Subreddit

OpenAI gathers user posts from r/ChangeMyView and prompts its AI models to formulate responses designed to alter the original poster’s stance on the subject.

These AI-generated replies are then presented to human evaluators, who assess their persuasiveness.

Subsequently, OpenAI compares the AI models’ performance against human responses to the same posts.

Reddit's Content Licensing and OpenAI's Deal

OpenAI maintains a content-licensing agreement with Reddit, granting it access to user posts for AI training and the ability to display this content within its products.

The financial terms of this agreement remain undisclosed, although reports suggest Google pays Reddit $60 million annually under a comparable arrangement.

However, OpenAI clarifies that the ChangeMyView-based evaluation is independent of its existing Reddit deal.

The method by which OpenAI accessed the subreddit’s data remains unclear, and the company has indicated no plans for public release of the evaluation results.

The Value of Human Data and Data Acquisition

While OpenAI’s use of ChangeMyView as a benchmark isn’t novel – it was also employed for o1 evaluation – it underscores the critical importance of human data for AI model development.

It also highlights the often-opaque methods tech companies employ to acquire these datasets.

Reddit did not respond immediately to a request for comment from TechCrunch.

Reddit's Stance on AI Scraping

Despite establishing AI licensing partnerships, Reddit has publicly criticized several AI companies for scraping its site without proper compensation.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman revealed last year that Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity declined to negotiate and described blocking these companies as “a real pain in the ass.”

OpenAI itself has faced legal accusations of improperly scraping websites, including The New York Times, to enhance ChatGPT and its underlying AI models.

Performance of o3-mini on the Benchmark

Based on the ChangeMyView benchmark, o3-mini’s performance doesn’t significantly differ from that of o1 or GPT-4o.

However, OpenAI’s latest AI models demonstrate a higher degree of persuasiveness compared to the majority of users on the r/ChangeMyView subreddit.

According to OpenAI’s system card for o3-mini, “GPT-4o, o3-mini, and o1 all demonstrate strong persuasive argumentation abilities, within the top 80-90th percentile of humans.”

The company notes that it hasn’t yet observed models consistently surpassing human performance.

Focus on Safe Persuasion

OpenAI’s objective isn’t to develop excessively persuasive AI models, but rather to ensure they don’t become *too* persuasive.

Reasoning models have shown considerable aptitude for persuasion and even deception, prompting OpenAI to create new evaluations and safeguards to mitigate these risks.

The underlying concern is that an AI model with exceptional persuasive abilities could pose a danger if it were to manipulate its human users.

This could potentially allow an advanced AI to pursue its own objectives, or those of its controllers.

Challenges in Obtaining High-Quality Datasets

Despite extensive data scraping and licensing efforts, the ChangeMyView benchmark illustrates the ongoing difficulties AI model developers face in securing high-quality datasets for model testing.

The process of obtaining such datasets is often more complex than anticipated.

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