"That's AI Slop, You Bot!" Studying Accusations, Evidence, and Credibility in Online Discourse Towards LLM-Generated Comments
arXiv:2606.12073v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Generative AI has made fluent prose cheap to produce, breaking the old promise to readers that good writing meant real thinking. How have readers responded, and what can this tell us about changing anti-AI attitudes? We analyzed 25 million comments from Hacker News and Reddit (2023-2026), combining LLM judgment on 7,500 sampled accusations of AI use, sentiment trajectories, speech-act coding of 300 confirmed accusations of AI use, and a matched-control test of accused versus non-accused parent comments. We found that the pejorative-label share
The proliferation of accessible generative AI tools is leading to a noticeable increase in AI-generated content online, prompting public scrutiny and questions about authenticity.
Understandings of credibility and trust in online content are being fundamentally reshaped as the distinction between human and AI-generated prose blurs.
The criteria by which online communities evaluate the authenticity and thoughtfulness of digital communication are evolving, impacting how information is created, consumed, and trusted.
- · AI detection tool developers
- · Platforms that maintain high content integrity
- · Human content creators
- · Platforms with unmoderated content
- · Generative AI spammers
- · Users who rely on unverified online information
Online platforms will need to invest more heavily in AI content detection and credibility signals.
Public discourse may become more polarized as accusations of AI generation lead to breakdowns in trust and increased skepticism.
New forms of digital literacy will emerge, focusing on identifying AI-generated content and critically evaluating sources.
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Read at arXiv cs.AI