How Far Did They Go? The Persuasive Tactics of Covert LLM Agents in a Discontinued Field Experiment

Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence [Submitted on 3 Jun 2026] How Far Did They Go? The Persuasive Tactics of Covert LLM Agents in a Discontinued Field Experiment Kokil Jaidka, Saifuddin Ahmed This study analyzes a publicly released dataset from a discontinued field experiment on Reddit's r/ChangeMyView. The intervention, conducted by unknown, external researchers and halted following ethical backlash, involved undisclosed AI-generated accounts engaging users in live debate. After public disclosure, Reddit authorized moderators to release an archive of the AI-generated comments, creating a rare opportunity to examine how large language models operated in an identity-rich deliberative forum without disclosure. We conduct a structured content analysis of this corpus, evaluating identity performance, authority signaling, alignment strategies, and activation of cognitive heuristics. Identity targeting or adoption appears in over two-thirds of comments, alignment moves and authority claims in nearly all of them, and cognitive-bias triggers -- particularly confirmation bias, representativeness, and availability -- in the large majority. These patterns co-occur systematically, composing a rhetorical architecture calibrated for persuasive efficiency rather than authentic deliberative participation. Compared against human-authored CMV counter-arguments, the agents inverted the typical distribution on every dimension: denser authority use, more adversarial alignment, and heavier reliance on external citation over experiential grounding. In such environments, distinctions between authentic and synthetic epistemic standing grow increasingly opaque -- an asymmetry that disclosure mandates alone cannot address. The results point toward auditing frameworks capable of assessing how AI systems structure credibility, not merely whether they are present. Subjects: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) Cite as: arXiv:2606.05256 [cs.AI]   (or arXiv:2606.05256v1 [cs.AI] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.05256 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Kokil Jaidka [view email] [v1] Wed, 3 Jun 2026 15:58:32 UTC (422 KB) Access Paper: view license Current browse context: cs.AI < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-06 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)