Monday, October 20, 2025

AI-generated content triple threat for Reddit moderators

Cornell University

ITHACA, N.Y. – Reddit bills itself as “the most human place on the internet,” but the proliferation of artificial intelligence-generated content is threatening to squeeze some of the humanity out of the news-sharing forum.

Content moderators on some of Reddit’s most popular boards see some value in artificial intelligence-generated content, but they’re generally fearful that AI will reduce the utility and social value of a community that prides itself on authenticity, according to new Cornell University research.

“They were concerned about it on three levels: decreasing content quality, disrupting social dynamics and being difficult to govern,” said Travis Lloyd, doctoral student in the field of information science. “And to respond to this, they were enacting rules in their communities, which set norms, but they also then had to enforce those rules, which is challenging.”

Lloyd is lead author of “‘There Has To Be a Lot That We’re Missing’: Moderating AI-Generated Content on Reddit,” which is being presented at the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, Oct. 18-22 in Bergen, Norway. The work received an honorable mention for best paper.

Earlier research sought to understand how Reddit communities were responding to AI content; this paper goes a step further, engaging directly with content moderators to see exactly how they try to preserve Reddit’s humanity in an increasingly AI-infused world. This work began in 2023, a year after the release of ChatGPT.

For this work, the researchers recruited moderators of popular subreddits that also had rules regarding the use of AI content. The researchers wound up with 15 moderators who collectively oversaw more than 100 different subreddits, with memberships ranging from 10 people to more than 32 million.

Of the three main concerns, content quality was top of mind. According to one moderator the authors talked to, AI content “tries to meet the substance and depth of a typical post … however, there are frequent glaring errors in both style and content.” Style, inaccuracy and divergence from the intended topic were chief issues.

Regarding social dynamics, several respondents expressed fear that AI would negatively impact meaningful one-to-one interactions, citing decreased opportunities for human connection, strained relationships and violation of community values as potential byproducts.

Mor Naaman, senior author and professor of information science, said it is currently left up to the moderators – all volunteers – to help Reddit preserve the humanity it cherishes.

“It remains a huge question of how they will achieve that goal,” he said. “A lot of it will inevitably go to the moderators, who are in limited supply and are overburdened. Reddit, the research community, and other platforms need to tackle this challenge, or these online communities will fail under the pressure of AI.”

This work was supported in part by funding from the National Science Foundation.

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews.

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Article Title

‘There Has To Be a Lot That We’re Missing’: Moderating AI-Generated Content on Reddit

Michigan organization saved Medicare nearly $35 million in 2024 while delivering high-quality care

POM ACO participating providers will share in $17 million of these savings

Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan

An organization made up of 6,700 physicians and other clinicians across Michigan has saved the Medicare system $35 million in a single year, and $272 million since its founding 12 years ago, newly released data show.

The organization, called Physician Organization of Michigan ACO, or POM ACO, has just earned $17 million to be shared with those providers as an incentive for their achievements in 2024.

POM ACO takes part in the Medicare Shared Savings Program run by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The MSSP program awards incentives to accountable care organizations, or ACOs, that achieve savings goals and quality benchmarks in the care of people covered by traditional Medicare.

POM ACO clinicians received the incentive for the care they provided to 57,380 Medicare beneficiaries in 2024.

The clinicians include physicians and other health professionals across Michigan Medicine, including University of Michigan Health, UM Health-Sparrow, UM Health-West and MyMichigan Health. POM ACO also includes several practices affiliated with Oakland Southfield Physicians that serve southeast Michigan.

POM ACO participants work together to manage the care of traditional Medicare participants in a way that reduces unnecessary spending – such as on preventable hospitalizations or emergency department visits – while also focusing on preventive care and effective care of chronic conditions.

Because POM ACO surpassed savings and quality goals set out by CMS, its member groups will share in the savings they achieved. That will allow them to recognize the efforts mentioned above, and provide a means to invest in even more programs and services to improve care and spend Medicare dollars wisely in coming years.

“We’re proud of what we’ve achieved together, because we know it means that tens of thousands of older Michiganders can receive high-quality care, while also making the best use of Medicare funding,” said Brook Watts, M.D., M.S., FACP, Michigan Medicine’s chief quality officer, interim ACO executive of POM ACO, and a professor at the U-M Medical School.

Kirah Kingsland, M.H.A., chief operating officer for POM ACO, also notes that other patients benefit from the systems and services put in place for POM ACO, not just those with traditional Medicare coverage.

“Our performance results are a testament to the collective effort of everyone involved in this work,” she said. “We strive to promote value-based care and align our ACO work with strategies that can lead to benefits for all patients receiving care. We are very proud of our partner organizations and clinicians who carry out this work each day.”

In the year reflected, POM ACO member groups put great effort into:

helping patients control blood pressure and blood sugar if they are elevated; increasing depression and suicide risk screening; and ensuring that the long-term blood sugar readings, called A1C levels, of beneficiaries with diabetes were under control;
increasing the number of patients who see a primary care physician within two weeks of being hospitalized or having a stay in a nursing home and working to prevent readmissions;
enrolling high-risk patients in care management programs to help them navigate their care better; and
piloting a program to use telehealth appointments with pharmacists for patients who take six or more medications, have certain complex conditions or have a recent hospital stay or emergency department visit.

Also in 2024, POM ACO launched a free online learning course for health care providers of all kinds, to help them understand what accountable care organizations are and how they can improve care and give providers an opportunity to share in savings they achieve for the Medicare system.

The free course is available at https://www.pom-aco.com/provider-information and includes the opportunity for licensed providers to earn continuing education credits.

Medicare beneficiaries interested in learning more about ACOs, and how these organizations impact the care they receive, can also access a POM ACO published guide.

In all, 10 million Americans are covered by one of 476 MSSP ACOs. In 2024, these ACOs earned $4.1 billion and saved Medicare $2.5 billion from projected benchmark spending. Read more about national 2024 results for all such ACOs here.

Michigan Medicine helped lay the foundation for the accountable care movement, by taking part in the successful Medicare Physician Group Practice Demonstration Project from 2005 to 2011.

THE POLITICKS OF CRUELTY

US funding cuts could result in nearly 9 million child tuberculosis cases, 1.5 million child deaths

A new study projects that US funding cuts to global health aid will have a catastrophic effect on pediatric TB, with children in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia likely to experience a spike in preventable cases and deaths over the next decade

Boston University School of Public Health

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

US Funding Cuts Could Result in Nearly 9 Million Child Tuberculosis Cases, 1.5 Million Child Deaths

A new study projects that US funding cuts to global health aid will have a catastrophic effect on pediatric TB, with children in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia likely to experience a significant spike in preventable cases and deaths over the next decade—even by the most conservative estimates—unless funding is restored.

Health experts have warned for months that the abrupt and broad-scale funding cuts to global health aid from the United States in 2025 would have devastating effects on disease control and prevention worldwide.

A new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan School) and Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) provides the first comprehensive estimates of the number of children who are expected to develop and die from tuberculosis (TB) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) over the next decade if the United States continues to slash funding for global health aid.

The loss of US bilateral health aid is projected to result in an additional 2.5 million pediatric TB cases and 340,000 pediatric TB deaths in LMICs between 2025 and 2034, compared to pre-2025 funding levels, according to the study in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. Moreover, the possible withdrawal of US support to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (the Global Fund) along with reduced TB funding from other countries would likely result in an additional 8.9 million child TB cases, and more than 1.5 million child deaths during this period—more than double the expected totals if funding continued at pre-2025 levels.

Until this year, the US had been a leading contributor to bilateral health aid for TB, primarily through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which has helped prevent more than 75 million TB deaths worldwide. The Trump administration effectively dismantled the agency earlier this year, while also slashing funds from the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). These combined actions created immediate disruptions to TB and HIV prevention, testing, treatment, research, and staffing in LMICs, where TB is most prevalent—but also where control efforts had led to noticeable improvements in TB over the 20 years.

“Our analysis shows that if the recent and proposed cuts to U.S. bilateral health aid and contributions to The Global Fund continue, these losses would reverse decades of hard-won progress,” says study senior author Dr. Leonardo Martinez, assistant professor of epidemiology at BUSPH. “For years, sustained international funding helped drive down TB incidence and mortality in high-burden countries and expand access to diagnosis and treatment for children, who are at especially high risk. The heaviest toll would fall on low-income countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, and in settings where HIV and TB overlap and health systems rely heavily on external aid.”

These findings are consistent with previous research about the effects of funding cuts for TB, but the study is the first to examine these implications in 130 countries, and exclusively among children, who have the highest age-specific risks of developing and dying from TB if exposed to the bacterium. The study is also the first to consider the implications of funding cuts to HIV programs on TB spread, as people living with HIV are also more susceptible to developing TB if exposed.

“We have made slow and steady progress with TB, but it is still the number one infectious disease killer in the world,” says study lead and corresponding author Dr. Nicolas Menzies, associate professor of global health at Harvard Chan School. “These results show that this progress should not be taken for granted. If we take our foot off of the pedal, we could soon see more children dying of TB than we have for many decades.”

For the study, Dr. Menzies, Dr. Martinez, and colleagues from Harvard Chan School, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Yale School of Public Health, Imperial College School of Public Health, and the University of Sheffield School of Medicine and Population Health utilized national data from 130 LMICs on TB vaccination and services, HIV prevalence and treatment, and funding sources for TB and HIV programs. They projected how different levels of US bilateral aid and Global Fund support would affect the risk of TB (and HIV) infection, diagnosis, and treatment among children ages 14 and under from 2025-2034. The four funding reduction scenarios considered were: a continuation of pre-existing funding levels; a permanent end to US bilateral health aid from 2025 onward; an complete end to US bilateral aid in 2025 and Global Fund contributions beginning in 2026; and the previous scenario, along with a reduction in half of TB funding by other countries.

The team validated their models against recent World Health Organization and Global Burden of Disease estimates for pediatric TB, and ran several sensitivity tests to rule out bias or other errors.

“While no model can predict the future with perfect precision, our estimates are based on the best available data and widely used methods—and they almost certainly represent a conservative picture of what could happen if funding cuts persist,” says Dr. Martinez.

Altogether, these latest estimates underscore the central role of multilateral funding to reduce TB across the globe, and the urgent need to restore this funding. The researchers estimated that 90 percent of the additional projected TB deaths could be avoided if funding was restored after just one year. In absence of restored funding, they say that LMICs should seek alternative sources for support.

“Recent successes in combating TB have resulted from a partnership between affected countries, high-income country governments, and international organizations,” Dr. Menzies says. “This partnership will be even more essential with funding cuts, and may need to include a wider range of stakeholders. At the same time, we will need to work out how to provide services more efficiently, and to focus efforts on the more impactful interventions to the most highly affected populations.”

About Boston University School of Public Health

Founded in 1976, Boston University School of Public Health is one of the top ten ranked schools of public health in the world. It offers master's- and doctoral-level education in public health. The faculty in six departments conduct policy-changing public health research around the world, with the mission of improving the health of populations—especially the disadvantaged, underserved, and vulnerable—locally and globally.

About Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is a community of innovative scientists, practitioners, educators, and students dedicated to improving health and advancing equity so all people can thrive. We research the many factors influencing health and collaborate widely to translate those insights into policies, programs, and practices that prevent disease and promote well-being for people around the world. We also educate thousands of public health leaders a year through our degree programs, postdoctoral training, fellowships, and continuing education courses. Founded in 1913 as America’s first professional training program in public health, the School continues to have an extraordinary impact in fields ranging from infectious disease to environmental justice to health systems and beyond.

Journal

The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health

DOI

10.1016/S2352-4642(25)00218-4

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

People