No, this startup is using AI agents to flood Reddit with dirty marketing

The internet has become full of AI-generated content, and one of the few places humans can still go to talk to other humans is Reddit.

Unfortunately, a new marketing automation startup called Astral wants to change that and bring LinkedIn-level marketing to the discussion board site. Startup founder Savannah Feder Post a video on X On Thursday she demonstrates how to use AI agents in a browser window, where her tool can scroll through Reddit and automatically write comments promoting whatever a marketer might be trying to sell.

Like other computer usage agents recently featured by the likes of Anthropic and GoogleAstral can take over a local browser and complete tasks by first taking screenshots of the page and analyzing them with AI to figure out what to do next based on the prompt, eventually sending commands back to the mouse. “See how Astral finds the right places to click,” Vader says as the bot starts logging into Reddit. “It’s really cool to see how he navigates the site just like a human would.” The video goes on to show how the bot goes to the /r/productmanagement subreddit, searches for posts about “user research,” and then “writes a response that promotes the product without seeming too salesy.”

The dream for these bots is that they will help grandma navigate her computer by herself, not create annoying marketing automation bots that flood social media. And that’s certainly why so many people show disdain for AI: it’s being deployed by the worst people you know.

Advertising Astral – an AI marketer working 24/7 to grow your startup.

Astral navigates websites, creates content, and manages social media marketing.

Watch Astral automate Reddit in real time: pic.twitter.com/XbpKt0lZqd

– Savannah (@SavannahFeder) January 9, 2025

This should be further evidence that AI is about to create a sea of ​​undifferentiated mediocrity and bland content as far as the eye can see. Anyone who’s spent enough time on LinkedIn or Imagine being proud of this, like being proud to pee in someone’s pool.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing is that the people who create tools like Astral really believe that AI and humans are interchangeable, and that this machine will be much better than a human could ever be.

Incredibly, after someone asked Feder why Astral used an AI agent that runs in a native browser instead of the Reddit API, she explained that it was because Reddit and other social media sites restrict the use of their APIs for automated tasks. There’s a reason for that: because it’s unwanted and annoying. She even excitedly explains to someone else that the bot can successfully bypass CAPTCHAs.

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, Reply to this post With a GIF of Patrick from SpongeBob Start crying.

It will be interesting to see how platforms like Reddit implement anti-bot measures to combat slippage.