The only thing stopping you from slurping down as much Reddit as possible is those pesky posts that have the gall to make you read words, rather than simply posting an image or video. There’s no browsing r/wallstreetbets or r/AITA from the shower, for instance. Not yet, anyway. Reddit has worked out a way to make those walls of text a little easier to digest by having artificial intelligence read ’em back to you. Only if you want it, of course.
Alexa, play r/tifu
The idea isn’t fresh. Short-form “content” “creators” have long since figured out the infinite money glitch that is Reddit. It’s particularly rampant on YouTube Shorts, where you’ll regularly come across a video reading out Kathy’s post about her relationship and farming it for views. They’re especially easy to churn out, see. All you need is some Minecraft parkour as a backdrop, and you’re set for life. Bonus points if the post is AI-generated.
Reddit’s plan won’t have the parkour skills, but it’s the same basic idea. TechCrunch reported that the feature, dubbed “video Reddit”, had launched on the web on Monday, with the iOS and Android apps following on Tuesday. The feature isn’t available to everyone, but is part of an experimental test.
Read More: Reddit wants AI to decide whether your posts are good enough
“There is an emerging content type elsewhere on the internet of, basically, podcasts where people read Reddit content,” said CEO Steve Huffman during Reddit’s second-quarter earnings call. “I think this version of, like, listened-to or spoken Reddit can be really engaging, as well,” he added. He’s probably right.
It’s worth noting that Reddit will manually determine which posts are fit to get the ‘video Reddit’ treatment. Hitting “play” on a post will format it as a vertical video, before a discordant voice reads out the original post and a few of the comments. The Verge got hold of the feature and described this post from r/boardgames as a three-minute-long video of an AI-powered voice reading Reddit replies aloud. We’re not quite sure what we expected, to be honest. Something a little more engaging, perhaps?
