How online studies must increase their defences against AI

LLM agents can now pass as human participants, threatening the validity of online social science. We urge a shift from ad-hoc checks to multi-layered, adaptive defenses, borrowing from internet anti-bot practice, and call for cooperation across researchers, platforms, and institutions, to guard against this challenge. LLM agents can now pass as human participants, threatening the validity of online social science. We urge a shift from ad-hoc checks to multi-layered, adaptive defenses, borrowing from internet anti-bot practice, and call for cooperation across researchers, platforms, and institutions, to guard against this challenge.