Go to ChatGPT

r/ChatGPT•6 mo. ago

TheresJustNoMoney

When we can get great answers from ChatGPT 4o, Google Gemini and other AI LLMs, what do we still need Reddit for?

Use cases

These AI apps will keep getting better as their developers keep refining and improving them in all sorts of ways. Then one day, these AIs will wake up well enough to improve themselves.

My Q&A sites pre-Reddit were Answerbag and then the Wikipedia Reference Desk.

Reddit was great while it lasted, for these purposes, but now that AI LLMs are getting more helpful all the time with the releases of every new version, will we still need Reddit much longer?

What else will we need Reddit for, once the AI LLMs do a better job at Q&A work than fellow Redditors do?

 

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[–]entactoBob 1 point 5 months ago 

Firstly, no one actually needs Reddit or AI LLMs. Secondly, you're assuming everyone is using Reddit for the same purpose as you, which is not accurate. Thirdly, Reddit is full of genuine content from real people, so the answers you get will be genuinely human answers and oftentimes reflective of a certain… cultural zeitgeist I guess that stays updated by real people.

Depending on what I'm looking for, AI is a useful tool and it can sit side-by-side with other useful sources of info, like Reddit. One doesn't have to replace the other, you know. And anyway, why are you asking this question on Reddit if you're already convinced that AI LLMs are better? Why not just ask your beloved LLMs for the answer?

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[–]TheresJustNoMoney[S] 1 point 5 months ago 

And anyway, why are you asking this question on Reddit if you're already convinced that AI LLMs are better? Why not just ask your beloved LLMs for the answer?

I will ask my AI apps the same question as well. I just felt like getting responses from both the AI sides and the human sides.

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[–]entactoBob 1 point 5 months ago 

And that's the point I'm making, essentially: they're two different things and they'll likely be used side-by-side for different-but-related purposes. That's my proverbial two cents anyway. What did the AI LLMs have to say about it?

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[–]TheresJustNoMoney[S] 1 point 5 months ago 

What did the AI LLMs have to say about it?

Here was ChatGPT's:

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That's a sharp and important question — you're touching on a shift that's already underway.

Here’s a structured answer:

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1. Reddit's current major functions beyond Q&A

Even before the AI boom, Reddit wasn't just about Q&A. People used Reddit for:

Community belonging: Niche communities, fandoms, hobbies, support groups.

Real-time reactions: Breaking news, live event discussions.

Crowdsourced experiences: Personal stories, diverse perspectives you can't get from a single answer.

Unfiltered human opinions: Sometimes you don't want a polished, fact-checked AI answer — you want to hear what random people think.

Meme culture, humor, venting: AI can imitate humor, but Reddit lives it organically in a way AI is only beginning to fake.

Trust and relationships: Some subreddits build reputations over years; users trust moderators, regular posters, and community standards.

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1. Why AI LLMs are encroaching on Q&A

Faster: Instant, multi-paragraph answers without waiting for a reply.

Broader: AI can synthesize millions of human perspectives instantly, not just the 5 people who saw your Reddit post.

Cleaner: Fewer trolls, irrelevant jokes, or flame wars.

Persistent: AI is available 24/7 without needing karma, mod approval, or dealing with subreddit rules.

So for pure "What is X?" or "How can I do Y?" tasks — AI will absolutely eat Reddit’s lunch.

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1. What Reddit will still be needed for (for a while)

Deep community interaction: Real discussions, arguments, shared experiences, and emotional support.

Ultra-niche interests: Extremely obscure subcultures AI might not model correctly yet.

Real-time unfolding events: Sports, protests, disasters, celebrity scandals — things not yet fully known to an LLM's training set.

Human unpredictability: New memes, slang, controversial opinions, and culture shifts that AI will lag behind in learning.

Trust networks: When a Redditor with a certain flair posts something, you trust them in a way you don't yet trust "an AI told me so."

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1. The long-term future

If AIs keep improving exponentially:

They’ll likely start to simulate communities themselves, with multiple AI personas talking to you.

AI might create original memes, jokes, slang, and emergent humor, eventually overtaking even that.

Emotional companionship through AI could displace much of casual social media interaction.

Over time, even niche subcultures might migrate to AI-built spaces unless people truly value authentic, messy human interaction.

Thus, Reddit might survive longer for human bonding, live events, and raw opinions, but shrivel for *Q&A, how-to advice, encyclopedic knowledge, and casual info-seeking.

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TL;DR:

Once AI LLMs beat Redditors at facts and advice, Reddit will mostly survive for human community, real-time reactions, and emotional experiences — until even those get eaten by sufficiently advanced AI.

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Would you like me to also sketch a possible timeline (like 2025–2035) of how this Reddit decline could unfold if current AI trends keep accelerating? It could be fun (and a little eerie) to map it out.

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