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AI Studies

Reddit AI Posts Increased by 146.3% From 2021 to 2024

With our proprietary Originality.ai AI detection tool, we studied the proportion of AI-generated Reddit between 2021 and 2024. These are our findings.

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With users navigating to Reddit’s platform in search of human interaction in an increasingly AI-generated world, we wanted to study Reddit content to see whether or not it has been impacted by the same increase in AI-generated content as other websites and discussion forums.

In this study, we looked closer at Reddit posts, identifying how many are likely AI-generated and the impact that could have on Reddit users.

Objectives of the Study

  • We recently looked into the rise in AI-generated responses on Quora and wanted to compare that rise to another popular discussion forum, Reddit.
  • Reddit is known for its user interactions and direct human communication, so we felt it was necessary to analyze whether that human-to-human relationship was still present.
  • We monitored Reddit posts from 2021 to 2024 to see how many were likely AI-generated and the impact that may have on Reddit users.

This study builds on our previous research into specific subreddits such as popular writing subreddits, and SEO and marketing subreddits, which we then further discussed in: Are You Getting Advice from a Human or Bot?

In contrast to the above-noted previous research which analyzed specific subreddits, this study took a broader approach with an overall analysis of the change in AI content on Reddit from 2021 to 2024. The complete methodology of this study is available at the end of this article.

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

  • 2021 to 2024: AI Reddit posts increased by 146.30%.
  • At the beginning of 2021, the percentage of AI Reddit posts was below 6%.
  • By 2024, AI Reddit posts had substantially increased to 13%.

13% of Reddit Posts Were Likely AI in 2024

In our research, we uncovered that 13% of Reddit posts were likely AI-generated in 2024.

It is important to note that does mean that 87% of the posts were human-written, which is a majority. However, the rise of AI-generated posts should be a concern for Reddit moderators, as well as the users of the platform.

The increase (146.30% from 2021 to 2024) is likely due to increased awareness and access to AI-generated tools as products like ChatGPT become more mainstream.

If Reddit leaves the percentage of posts that are likely AI-generated to continue rising, it could cause significant issues, as users of the site could become less trusting, and the unique selling point of user interactions may get lost.

2021 to 2024: AI Reddit Posts Increased by 146.30%

From reviewing the data from our study, it’s clear to see a significant rise in AI-generated content despite what seems to be a concerted effort from Reddit to reduce this in 2023.

  • At the beginning of 2021: the AI-generated answer rate was below 6%.
  • In 2022: that rate rose slightly before a dip in 2023.
  • By 2024: the rate of Reddit AI posts increased dramatically to 13% — highlighting an overall increase of 146.30% between 2021 and 2024.

Impact of AI Content on Reddit

As you might expect, a rise in AI content on Reddit could have significant impacts, not just for consumers but also for the website itself.

For consumers, Reddit is a place they visit to gain advice (and human authenticity) from other people, often asking for guidance from others who have experienced what they are experiencing or are an expert in that field.

So, if that were to be eroded by an increase in AI-generated posts, it could have a significant impact on the authenticity of the website and the trust that its users have for the answers, comments, and advice they are reading.

Not to mention that Google has also been seen to penalize websites that publish AI content if it doesn’t adhere to spam policies, which could also impact Reddit traffic negatively. (Read more in our study on Google AI Content Penalties).

Final Thoughts

The increase in AI-generated posts on Reddit is not dissimilar to what we are seeing across Google with our study on AI content in Google Search Results.

However, it is a particularly potent issue for discussion forums like Reddit, which are popular due to human-to-human interactions. If those are replaced by AI-generated posts and responses, it could impact how many people rely on the website.

Therefore, it is imperative that Reddit moderators continue to monitor AI-generated content on the site, ensuring the integrity of the website remains and the integrity of the brand remains.

Another thing to consider is the impact that generative AI is having on the digital knowledge-sharing world. The effects of this will only become known further down the line, but given that AI can hallucinate, it could cause a number of problems.

Are you unsure if a review or post you’re reading is human-written or AI-generated? Use the Originality.ai AI detector to find out.

Read more about the impact of AI on online platforms: 

Methodology

This study analyzed the prevalence of AI-generated content in Reddit posts using publicly available data, focusing on how frequently AI-generated content appeared over time. The dataset included Reddit posts with metadata such as ID, URL, title, description, and timestamp.

Data was collected from a publicly accessible Reddit dataset and processed with a Python script using the Originality.ai API for AI content detection. The script provided two key outputs: an AI Likelihood Score and a binary AI Classification (1 for AI-generated, 0 for human-generated). Only posts with descriptions of at least 50 words were processed to ensure accurate detection.

The detection pipeline involved querying the API, automatically retrying on failures, and saving data every 500 posts. The results were stored in a CSV file containing both the AI classification and original metadata.

AI classification data was grouped by year, and the rate of AI-generated posts was calculated for each year. From 2021 to 2024, AI-generated content increased by 146.30%, reflecting the growing use of AI tools like ChatGPT.

Madeleine Lambert

Madeleine Lambert is the Director of Marketing and Sales at Originality.ai, with over a decade of experience in SEO and content creation. She previously owned and operated a successful content marketing agency, which she scaled and exited. Madeleine specializes in digital PR—contact her for media inquiries and story collaborations.

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In The Press

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Originality.ai did a fantastic job on all three prompts, precisely detecting them as AI-written. Additionally, after I checked with actual human-written textual content, it did determine it as 100% human-generated, which is important.

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I use this tool most frequently to check for AI content personally. My most frequent use-case is checking content submitted by freelance writers we work with for AI and plagiarism.

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After extensive research and testing, we determined Originality.ai to be the most accurate technology.

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Jon Gillham, Founder of Originality.ai came up with a tool to detect whether the content is written by humans or AI tools. It’s built on such technology that can specifically detect content by ChatGPT-3 — by giving you a spam score of 0-100, with an accuracy of 94%.

Felix Rose-Collins

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ChatGPT lacks empathy and originality. It’s also recognized as AI-generated content most of the time by plagiarism and AI detectors like Originality.ai

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For web publishers, Originality.ai will enable you to scan your content seamlessly, see who has checked it previously, and detect if an AI-powered tool was implored.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to check for plagiarism?

Tools for conducting a plagiarism check between two documents online are important as it helps to ensure the originality and authenticity of written work. Plagiarism undermines the value of professional and educational institutions, as well as the integrity of the authors who write articles. By checking for plagiarism, you can ensure the work that you produce is original or properly attributed to the original author. This helps prevent the distribution of copied and misrepresented information.

What is Text Comparison?

Text comparison is the process of taking two or more pieces of text and comparing them to see if there are any similarities, differences and/or plagiarism. The objective of a text comparison is to see if one of the texts has been copied or paraphrased from another text. This text compare tool for plagiarism check between two documents has been built to help you streamline that process by finding the discrepancies with ease.

How do Text Comparison Tools Work?

Text comparison tools work by analyzing and comparing the contents of two or more text documents to find similarities and differences between them. This is typically done by breaking the texts down into smaller units such as sentences or phrases, and then calculating a similarity score based on the number of identical or nearly identical units. The comparison may be based on the exact wording of the text, or it may take into account synonyms and other variations in language. The results of the comparison are usually presented in the form of a report or visual representation, highlighting the similarities and differences between the texts.

String comparison is a fundamental operation in text comparison tools that involves comparing two sequences of characters to determine if they are identical or not. This comparison can be done at the character level or at a higher level, such as the word or sentence level.

The most basic form of string comparison is the equality test, where the two strings are compared character by character and a Boolean result indicating whether they are equal or not is returned. More sophisticated string comparison algorithms use heuristics and statistical models to determine the similarity between two strings, even if they are not exactly the same. These algorithms often use techniques such as edit distance, which measures the minimum number of operations (such as insertions, deletions, and substitutions) required to transform one string into another.

Another common technique for string comparison is n-gram analysis, where the strings are divided into overlapping sequences of characters (n-grams) and the frequency of each n-gram is compared between the two strings. This allows for a more nuanced comparison that takes into account partial similarities, rather than just exact matches.

String comparison is a crucial component of text comparison tools, as it forms the basis for determining the similarities and differences between texts. The results of the string comparison can then be used to generate a report or visual representation of the similarities and differences between the texts.

What is Syntax Highlighting?

Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) that helps to visually distinguish different elements of a code or markup language. It does this by coloring different elements of the code, such as keywords, variables, functions, and operators, based on a predefined set of rules.

The purpose of syntax highlighting is to make the code easier to read and understand, by drawing attention to the different elements and their structure. For example, keywords may be colored in a different hue to emphasize their importance, while comments or strings may be colored differently to distinguish them from the code itself. This helps to make the code more readable, reducing the cognitive load of the reader and making it easier to identify potential syntax errors.

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Using text comparison tools is much easier, more efficient, and more reliable than proofreading a piece of text by hand. Eliminate the risk of human error by using a tool to detect and display the text difference within seconds.

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