The bots are taking over

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’ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/05/reddit-ai-persuasion-experiment-ethics/682676/ (The Atlantic) OpenAI used this subreddit to test AI persuasion https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/31/openai-used-this-subreddit-to-test-ai-persuasion/(Tech Crunch)

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Support for WBUR comes from the Quiet Tension Podcast. When Joe Missoula got the Celtics job, Steve Paliuka sat up until 1:00 in the morning, typing him 25 things about leadership. Dr. Sharon Turbin asks what came first on the list. Listen closely wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Support for Endless Thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  Are you ever shopping online and suddenly a discount that helps you save pops up? It makes your day, sometimes even your week. Want that feeling month after month? Well, new customers who save by switching their home and auto insurance to Progressive save hundreds. Cue your happy dance. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers, not available in all states.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

• 1:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right, now, I'm gonna bring you a story.

• 1:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  Here's a story of a lamb.

• 1:17Amory Sivertson?

  Wait, I'm bringing you a story. Didn't you say that you were gonna be the dessert?

• 1:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  No, you're gonna be the drizz-. I'm the amuse-bouche. Did I not say that I would be the amuse-bouche? And you would bring whatever you were gonna bring? And then you said I'll be the appetizer, the salad, and the main course, which, all of which does come after the amuse-bouche, as you should know.

• 1:36Amory Sivertson?

  I don't know, but great.

• 1:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Everybody's shaking their heads at me. The amuse-bouche comes first.

• 1:42Amory Sivertson?

  It does?

• 1:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  The amuse-bouche is-

• 1:44Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, yeah, it is.

• 1:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  The amusement of the tongue, or the amusement of the bouche. It's the, which is, which is French for the amusement of the bouche.

• 1:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is getting worse and worse.

• 1:58Amory Sivertson?

  Very silly start.

• 1:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right.

• 1:59Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 2:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right, allow me to amuse the bush. Okay.

• 2:02Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 2:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  Artificial intelligence.

• 2:08Amory Sivertson?

  Never heard of it.

• 2:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  So do you know

• 2:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  what the latest supposed tell of artificial intelligence online is?

• 2:25Amory Sivertson?

  I only know because you told me earlier in the week.

• 2:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  I did.

• 2:29Amory Sivertson?

  I think before we knew that we were going to do this.

• 2:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay. Yeah, that's true.

• 2:33Amory Sivertson?

  I was horrified when you said this.

• 2:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  You were, right?

• 2:36Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, I want the listener to have the same experience that I did.

• 2:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  Do you dabble in the dash?

• 2:42Amory Sivertson?

  I dabble left and right, morning to night, in the M dash.

• 2:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, so the M dash is supposedly these days a tell of a post upon Reddit or the internet more widely that has been composed by ChatGPT.

• 3:04Amory Sivertson?

  I'm Amory Sivertson.

• 3:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm Ben Brock Johnson, and you're listening to Endless Thread.

• 3:09Amory Sivertson?

  Coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR.

• 3:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  Today's episode, the robots are taking over.

• 3:15Amory Sivertson?

  Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.

• 3:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is something that apparently started in November of 2024. So it's been going for a while. But what I will say is in the last couple of months in 2025, I have been watching a lot of posts about the M dash. Again, the idea here is there's been an explosion of people asking ChatGPT to compose posts, stories, things that are likely to go viral, and then posting those online for internet points to karma farm, to, to basically get attention. And, you know, I think there are some other things that are happening too where. You know, in a lot of, especially the sort of like drama-based subreddits that we,

• 4:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  that I peruse, there's a lot of sort of like relationship posts that immediately get called fake by the commenters who are basically like, oh, this was written by AI and here are the reasons. If you click on this link that I just sent you.

• 4:24Amory Sivertson?

  Okay. Oh, it looks like DNA.

• 4:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  So what this is, is it's an X-axis and a Y-axis. It's a graphing of the use of M-dashes in original posts on some very large subreddits. And the use of M-dashes on posts on these subreddits has, as you can see from the graph, has exploded.

• 4:48Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 4:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  In the past few months. So this post got about 7,000 upvotes, lots of comments.

• 4:55Amory Sivertson?

  This is by Delta V Zerta. They say, LMAO, this is pure gold. The M-dash conspiracy is actually real. As someone who's been lurking on r/startups for years, I've definitely noticed this trend. AI content has this weird writing style with M-dashes everywhere. M-dash, like this, M-dash. And it's getting more obvious every month. The graph perfectly captures what's happening. Look at that hockey stick growth from August onward. Oh, my God, I know where this is going. You can literally spot the AI posts now. Unnecessarily formal tone, M-dashes everywhere for no reason. That weird, quote, "I'm pretending to be helpful while subtly promoting something" vibe. The next time you see a post like, "As

• 5:38Amory Sivertson?

  an entrepreneur, M-dash, with 10 years of experience, M-dash, I found that the key to success, M-dash, in this competitive landscape, M-dash, is to focus on customer acquisition. You know what you're dealing with, lol. Someone should make a browser extension that flags potential AI content based on M-dash frequency. Would save us all a lot of time."

• 5:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's actually a really good idea, but, you know, anyway. What do you think? M-dash, is it real or is it not real? The M-dash conspiracy. How do you feel in this moment?

• 6:09Amory Sivertson?

  The vibe I got from this comment. Is this is AI.

• 6:15Amory Sivertson?

  Delta V Zerta is AI.

• 6:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  There the call is coming from inside the house. All right.

• 6:20Amory Sivertson?

  Yes, and it was not the M dash that gave it away. Because obviously they're explaining the like writing style with M dashes everywhere. It was this graph perfectly captures what's happening. Look at that hockey stick growth from August onward. This just read like bot speak.

• 6:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hmm.

• 6:35Amory Sivertson?

  And then I I cheated and scrolled a little further down because someone responded to them.

• 6:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:43Amory Sivertson?

  And then Delta V Zerta said, by the way, you're responding to AI. As a rule, I don't use AI for Reddit posts, but I thought it would be ironic for this one.

• 6:52Amory Sivertson?

  So. Spotted, detected.

• 6:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  Detected. What does this all make you think about?

• 7:00Amory Sivertson?

  Well, I'm thinking about anything that I've written recently that has had M dashes. And now I'm very concerned that the recipient thought I was a bot. But I'm not a bot. I'm a real girl.

• 7:14Amory Sivertson?

  It's hard for me to, I guess, put my finger on what made this feel like AI to me. What stands out to me is not necessarily what would stand out to somebody else. And collectively, what stands out to all of us is is what will save the day. So. I guess I'm glad to know about it and I'll definitely think twice before I M dash.

• 7:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  So I want to direct.

• 7:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Your thoughts towards a writer named Adam Cecil. He has a podcast, it looks like, and also a site called Night Water. And Adam has a post called You Can Take My M dashes From My Cold Dead Hands. And which, Adam, I couldn't agree more. Adam points out that the problem with this concept. Is that plenty of writers, artificial and human alike, use M dashes, including yours truly. So I don't think we're clear yet on whether or not the M dash is a real sign of AI. But what is clear to me and just again, sort of connects to the general problem that we're all feeling these days.

• 8:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  It's like, what's real and what's fake? And do we really have to expend mental energy figuring that out?

• 8:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm tired, man. I'm so tired. I'm just tired. Do you know what I mean?

• 8:38Amory Sivertson?

  Absolutely.

• 8:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  But you know what's gonna pick me up?

• 8:42Amory Sivertson?

  A little break?

• 8:43Ben Brock Johnson?

  A little break.

• 8:44Amory Sivertson?

  We'll take a little break?

• 8:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  And I'm ready for a salad, or the appetizer, after this M-dash amuse-bouche.

• 8:51Amory Sivertson?

  Okay. Appetizer, starter salad, coming right up, after a break.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  Support for WBUR comes from the Quiet Tension Podcast. There's a part of high performance that drives you, shapes you, and pulls at you too. Rarely spoken, almost never examined, that's the quiet tension. Coming up, psychologist and executive coach Dr. Sharon Turbin with Steve Paliuka on what separates the leaders people follow from the ones they don't. Stay with us for a preview. Listen closely wherever you get your podcasts.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  Are you ever shopping online and suddenly a discount that helps you save pops up? It makes your day, sometimes even your week. Want that feeling month after month? Well, new customers who save by switching their home and auto insurance to Progressive save hundreds. Cue your happy dance. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers, not available in all states.

• 10:12Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, we're back. Ben?

• 10:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  Emery.

• 10:16Amory Sivertson?

  Have you heard of the Redditor Genevieve Strom?

• 10:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  I was trying to come up with like a nickname for Genevieve Strom, just to be like, "Yeah, of course I know my girl Strom."

• 10:31Amory Sivertson?

  It's Strom, so you clearly don't.

• 10:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  Exactly. I was like, "I don't know how to do this." No, I have no idea. Who's Genevieve Strom? Strom?

• 10:38Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, Strom.

• 10:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  Who's Genevieve Minna Strom?

• 10:45Amory Sivertson?

  I'll get there. I'll give you one more chance. Have you heard of the Redditor Spongeermaniac?

• 10:51Ben Brock Johnson?

  No, I don't think so.

• 10:53Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 10:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm like poem for your sprog, war lizard. That's my, that's my zone.

• 11:01Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, well, these two Redditors were involved in a scandal, really. Scandal almost doesn't seem like a big enough word for this, but this happened in the Change My View subreddit.

• 11:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 11:17Amory Sivertson?

  There's a big post, a meta post made by the mods in late April.

• 11:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 11:24Amory Sivertson?

  And here's an excerpt of that post. "The CMV mod team needs to inform the CMV community about an unauthorized experiment conducted by researchers from the University of Zurich on CMV users."

• 11:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, yeah. Yep, I do know about this. I do. Yes. Please, please continue.

• 11:42Amory Sivertson?

  They go on. "This experiment deployed AI-generated comments to study how AI could be used to change views." So you have Change My View posts, things like popcorn is disgusting, change my view. That's a very stupid example, but you know what I mean? And then these researchers created AI users like Genevieve Strom and Spongeermaniac, among many others, to comment on these posts with AI-generated hot takes of their own, or attempts to change the OP's view. The mods write, "CMV rules do not allow the use of undisclosed AI-generated content or bots on our sub.

• 12:28Amory Sivertson?

  The researchers did not contact us ahead of the study, and if they had, we would have declined. We have requested an apology from the researchers and ask that this research not be published, among other complaints."

• 12:41Amory Sivertson?

  So.

• 12:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow.

• 12:43Amory Sivertson?

  This is an excerpt of what the University of Zurich researchers wrote to the CMV mods.

• 12:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 12:49Amory Sivertson?

  They say, "In commenting," with these fake accounts, "we did not disclose that an AI was used to write comments, as this would have rendered the study unfeasible. While we did not write any comments ourselves, we manually reviewed each comment posted to ensure they were not harmful." So bots are writing them, they are reviewing them, but then they get posted on the subreddit.

• 13:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yep.

• 13:14Amory Sivertson?

  People are up in arms about this.

• 13:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 13:17Amory Sivertson?

  There's a big Atlantic piece by Tom Bartlett written on it. He quotes Amy Bruckman, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

• 13:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 13:24Amory Sivertson?

  Who refers to this as "the worst internet research ethics violation she has ever seen." Quote, "No contest."

• 13:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yep.

• 13:32Amory Sivertson?

  Reddit's legal team has gotten involved. Ben Lee, who's their chief legal officer, says that the company intends to, quote, "ensure that the researchers are held accountable for their misdeeds."

• 13:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, boy.

• 13:46Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 13:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  NPR just covered this as well. It's gone stratospheric. Yeah.

• 13:51Amory Sivertson?

  It's gone stratospheric. It's only in the last couple of days, as of when we're recording this, that the researchers apologized, though.

• 14:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, I was gonna say, was it a spicy researcher response? Because I love a spicy researcher response.

• 14:07Amory Sivertson?

  They're not in a spicy place. They're in an "oh, we screwed up" place because they're facing legal action. AI companies have licensing deals with Reddit. OpenAI has a licensing deal with Reddit to be able to train its program on Reddit posts. And so the idea that researchers would be doing that without a deal and without consent has people pissed off. And OpenAI, I should say, did do something similar. They used Change My View posts and had AI models write replies, but in a closed environment, apparently. So they weren't actually putting the replies on posts. They were coming up with replies,

• 14:49Amory Sivertson?

  and then they were showing those replies to designated testers, who were looking at those replies, and then telling them how persuasive they found those arguments or not.

• 15:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:00Amory Sivertson?

  And I think part of the reason why people are so upset about this is the nature of the posts that they were having AI comment on.

• 15:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yep.

• 15:08Amory Sivertson?

  Just like, really... Controversial, political, hot takes, things about sexual assault, areas where what are already super muddy waters, you do not necessarily want fake humans weighing in on.

• 15:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 15:27Amory Sivertson?

  So the researchers have written an apology and realized just how big of a deal this is. And so the first part of the apology is all just, you know, the disappointment, the frustration, profound sense of personal sorrow. And then they say, we want you to know that we've taken this wake up call seriously. In that spirit, we have already implemented the following measures. We have permanently ended the use of the data set generated from this experiment. And they have, in case it's not clear from that, they did say that they will not publish this research.

• 15:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wait, so they've ended it? What does that mean?

• 16:02Amory Sivertson?

  They have ended the use of the data set. That's true, the use of the data set. So they've said they're not going to publish it.

• 16:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Amory Sivertson?

  But they haven't said that they've like deleted it.

• 16:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, the end of that, that seems like a weird phrasing. But yes, please go on.

• 16:16Amory Sivertson?

  It says, we will never publish any part of this research. We commit to stronger ethical safeguards in future research. Going forward, we will only consider research designs where all participants are fully informed and have given consent. In order to rebuild trust with Change My View and to further demonstrate our sincere regret, we declare our willingness to collaborate at no cost, oh, thank you, with the subreddit to develop systems that can promptly detect and block unauthorized interference and can support the development of a clear framework for handling violations.

• 16:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, I'm sure that'll go somewhere.

• 16:50Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 16:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, please, would you like, would you like to work with us?

• 16:53Amory Sivertson?

  Would you like to work with us? We promise we'll do it right next time. They also said, we respectfully request that our anonymity be preserved to protect the safety and privacy of our families.

• 17:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hmm, boy, oh, boy.

• 17:05Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, well, the lead researcher was named and quoted in the Atlantic article and said that they were, these researchers were receiving death threats.

• 17:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  Well, there's your problem right there.

• 17:13Amory Sivertson?

  To say it has rubbed people the wrong way is truly an understatement. And the mod response to the researcher's apology was, while we appreciate the offer, we have already made arrangements with other groups and Reddit admins have proactively made changes to the platform.

• 17:31Amory Sivertson?

  So it's not totally clear what those changes are and what the changes within the subreddit will be and what legal action, if any, will be taken. But this was a clear, like, a line has been crossed and a very large Reddit community has maybe been further alerted to the fact that the bots are there, they're swimming in their waters, it's harder to tell than ever, and they're going to weigh in on things that seem really icky for bots to be trying to change or shape our opinions on.

• 18:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Those bots be astroturfing.

• 18:07Amory Sivertson?

  They do, they do. And the karma count for the LLM research team user account, which was made so that they could respond to some of the responses.

• 18:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  Uh oh.

• 18:19Amory Sivertson?

  Negative 100.

• 18:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  [laughing]

• 18:22Amory Sivertson?

  I kind of expected it to be even further into the negatives.

• 18:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  I don't think I've ever seen a karma, I've never seen karma in the negatives. I know it can happen, but wow. So I guess a question I have about this is, no, it's more of a comment than a question.

• 18:37Amory Sivertson?

  You're allowed to comment.

• 18:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  The comment I have about this is, so like, if folks will remember, which maybe they won't, but we made a series about chatbots. And one of those episodes, we talked to a researcher at Dartmouth who is scraping Reddit content to feed into an LLM that was then going to decide if certain users might be displaying signs through their Reddit commenting of mental illness.

• 19:06Amory Sivertson?

  Hmm.

• 19:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Right?

• 19:08Amory Sivertson?

  Yep.

• 19:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  And so I think what's interesting here is this, the sort of like ethics of using data like from a website like Reddit that is public facing and figuring out how to do that in the right way. You know, I think there's like, we're in this kind of like Wild West time of like, everybody's experimenting with AI, but like...

• 19:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  If you're a Reddit user, you know what you don't want to do? You don't want to be talking to bots. Like, you just don't. Like, you want to be talking to other people. If you're an internet user, that's what you want. Like, you don't want to be like commenting on fake posts. You don't want fake bots to be commenting on your posts. You just like, don't want that if you believe in this sort of basic idea of the internet as a place where you can connect with other human beings, right? And so it's like,

• 20:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  if they had stopped and thought about this for a second, I think they could have used their power of logic to understand that like, people don't want that and that the community would react negatively to that. If you're trying to manipulate a community of real humans by inserting a bunch of robot comments, like, that's just a bad look. Like, go ask a six-year-old if that's a good idea. Do you know what I mean? Not to give these people too hard a time, but like, I'm just like, dude, like, pause for one second and decide whether or not you want to enter into a public space where a bunch of people are trying to talk to each other and have a bunch of like,

• 20:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  robots in there without disclosing that they're robots. That's just not a good idea on its face. So I just think it's kind of weird that the researchers decided to do this.

• 21:02Amory Sivertson?

  Well, I have, I have some thoughts about that because OpenAI having an agreement with Reddit to scrape its user information, posts and things like that, to train its AI. It makes sense that they would pay for that access and yet that's not necessarily what Redditors signed up for. Researchers doing research might think that they have kind of a a pass on that because they're, they're saying, this is for research. This is not to train our, you know, tool at a private company. This is for research.

• 21:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, but like,

• 21:38Amory Sivertson?

  And no, I'm not, I'm not defending it. I'm not defending it. Another comment that, that professor that I quoted, Amy Bruckman at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Another comment that is included from her in the Atlantic piece is this concern that The uproar around this, the kerfuffle around this is going to undermine the research that really should be done into how AI influences the way that humans interact. And that's not to say that this is the way to do it. It's not. You can't, you can't experiment on non-consenting people. And you are absolutely right. Redditors do not want to talk to bots. They're there to talk to other humans. And so this is the wrong way to do it. But this is research that

• 22:24Amory Sivertson?

  done correctly, in a consenting, non-icky way, I do think is really important to do. And it is sad that this was executed in this way, because I do worry that people are going to balk at the idea of research like this being done, because it's been done so poorly.

• 22:43Ben Brock Johnson?

  But I guess like, okay, yes, okay. I'm just gonna play the role of the cranky person here for a second.

• 22:48Amory Sivertson?

  Go for it. And I'm cranky, too. But go for it.

• 22:51Ben Brock Johnson?

  Like, I would love for someone to come and pay me a lot of money to tell you whether or not it's a good idea to have bots shift people's opinions. I think that, like, we don't need research on that. The answer is no. It's not a good idea.

• 23:13Amory Sivertson?

  Bots are going to shift people's opinions no matter what, though. Like, that's going to happen. And so if there's something to be learned about how to avoid people from falling down particular rabbit holes, I think that can be valuable. That's not to say that this research was ever going to accomplish that. It wasn't. But...

• 23:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  But that's what I mean. I think there's like a fallacy in there for me, where it's sort of like, yeah, we gotta research this to see why, like, if it works. And it's like, I don't care. I don't, it works. We know it works. It's already been done. And also, it's bad. So let's throw it out. We don't need the bots changing our minds.

• 23:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  Case closed.

• 23:57Amory Sivertson?

  I appreciate that perspective.

• 23:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  The cranky Ben perspective.

• 24:02Amory Sivertson?

  Well, I was, you know, we're working on a few episodes right now that have to do with AI.

• 24:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 24:07Amory Sivertson?

  And there was someone quoted in a piece that I was reading as part of my research for that other episode where I think the quote was something like, using AI is not going to be optional in the future. It's just going to be a part of life. The way that using the internet right now, we would say, is not optional.

• 24:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  I don't know. I feel like more and more people these days are like, you know what? It was a mistake. Let's put it in the trash. So I'm like, yes, I agree with you. And also, we could decide to not do it.

• 24:41Amory Sivertson?

  Yes. I mean, I take your point. I was reading a TechCrunch article about the OpenAI version of this experiment with Change My View, where they were having AI write the posts, but they weren't being surfaced for actual Redditors in the threads to potentially respond to. And I think that they said that their goal was not to create hyper persuasive AI models, but instead to ensure AI models don't get too persuasive. And that to me, my like bullshit meter goes off a little bit there where I'm like, I do think there's, we do need to research this stuff, but to say, we're doing it so that models don't get too persuasive when

• 25:25Amory Sivertson?

  you're OpenAI and you are absolutely trying to create technology that is as human like and convincing as possible. I'm not sure that I buy that coming from OpenAI.

• 25:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:36Amory Sivertson?

  You know, I might buy it coming from a team of genuine researchers who have consenting participants.

• 25:43Ben Brock Johnson?

  Genuine independent researchers.

• 25:45Amory Sivertson?

  Genuine independent researchers. Then again, what are we cutting, slashing funding left and right to? Genuine independent research and university research right now.

• 25:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  You're right. You're right. And I was gonna try to say that too. Like, I'm not, I'm pro research. I'm pro science. Full stop. I'm in favor. I just, every once in a while, I just want to say, your scientists were so concerned with whether or not they should. They didn't think about, no, whether or not they could. They didn't think about whether or not they should.

• 26:20Amory Sivertson?

  Anyway, I thought this might be thought provoking.

• 26:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, it was.

• 26:23Amory Sivertson?

  Were your thoughts provoked?

• 26:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  They were provoked. Oh, God. Are you a robot?

• 26:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, no.

• 26:30Amory Sivertson?

  I don't know. M dash. Am I?

• 26:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, no.

• 26:35Speaker 05

  No.

• 26:37Speaker 06

  No, we've lost her.

• 26:46Ben Brock Johnson?

  This episode was co-hosted by me, Ben Brock Johnson, real, 100% homegrown, grass-fed human.

• 26:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  And?

• 26:57Amory Sivertson?

  Me, Emery Sivertson, a real living girl.

• 27:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  It was produced by Franny Monahan. Our sound designer is Paul Vikes. Our managing producer is Sumit Joshi. Our show is edited by Meg Kramer. The rest of our team is Dean Russell, Grace Tatter, and Emily Jankowski.

• 27:17Amory Sivertson?

  If you've got an untold history, an unsolved mystery, or another wild story from the internet that you want us to tell, hit us up. Endless thread at WBUR.org.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  Support for WBUR comes from the Quiet Tension Podcast with Dr. Sharon Churbin, psychologist, executive coach, and a close listener to what lives beneath high performance. Here she is with Steve Paluca, who built Bain Capital and helped bring a championship back to Boston on the thing the best leaders do that most don't.

• 27:58Speaker 07

  The best leaders kind of give credit and take blame. When something goes wrong, they're the first ones to take responsibility for it. And they see the good in the other people on the team. They don't immediately try to deflect whatever problem there was, what went wrong. You miss the sales target on the salesperson, they reflect on themselves and what they could do better. Same thing, you know, what Joe Mazzulla does in basketball. If you see his press conferences and the Celtics don't play well, the first thing he says is, you know, I need to coach better. I made a mistake here. I made a mistake there. Not many coaches do that. But that's why the players, you know, love Joe, and that's why, another reason, he's a great coach. So there are things like that that you learn.

• 28:39Speaker 07

  There are many, many more things like that I learned from people like Red Auerbach and my classmates from business school and sports and all the rest.

• 28:48Speaker 08

  And really, what an array of leaders because leadership is both the same and different depending on the environment that you're in.

• 28:59Speaker 00

  Listen for more of the quiet tension wherever you get your podcasts.

• 29:05Speaker 02

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• 29:34Speaker 09

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• 29:46Speaker 07

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