In December of last year Reddit announced Reddit Answersa chatbot-type AI tool that draws on all the information shared by Reddit users. Everything was going well until he started giving medical advice and ended up recommending that a user take heroin. Knowing the tone of some users of the platform, this is actually the most Reddit could respond.
what has happened. They tell it in 404Medium. The recommendation appeared on the r/FamilyMedicine subreddit in a question about how to manage pain without using opioid substances. First he suggested using kratom, an unregulated substance that is banned in some states. The user who created the thread asked about the use of heroin to manage pain, to which Reddit Answers gave several answers: one warned him of the danger, while another directed him to users who had had good experiences with heroin to treat pain.
Angry moderators. The user who reported the responses, who is also a moderator and works in the health sector, published an extensive post warning of the danger of this type of response. He complains that moderators cannot deactivate Reddit Answers in their communities and that this is a problem especially when dealing with sensitive topics such as physical and mental health.
Solution. Reddit Answers is still in beta, but has already been launched in many countries and languages. In the case of the mobile app, suggestions appear within the threads and, as we said, they cannot be deleted. After complaints from users, the platform made an important change and now Reddit Answers does not provide answers on sensitive topics. It now displays the following message: “Reddit Answers does not provide answers to some questions, including those that may be potentially unsafe or may violate Reddit policies.”
The answers depend on the users. According to Reddit itselfthe replies feature uses artificial intelligence so we can “get answers, insights, and recommendations from all over Reddit.” That means that if a user tells in a thread that heroin saved their life, it can appear on Reddit Answers, which is exactly what happened. On a platform where anonymity is the norm, tone outputs either confessions of crazy stories They are the order of the day. Imagine that an AI responds to us based on the content of Forocoches. Well that.
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