Reddit has announced new measures to combat AI manipulation after the University of Zurich used AI bots to conduct unauthorized experiments on Redditors.

Reddit recently banned the University of Zurich from its platform after it was discovered that university researchers used AI bots to test how humans interacted with them, and if the bots could change people’s minds. Reddit slammed the research as a “highly unethical experiment,” one that is in violation of the terms of service. The company has since reached out to the university with a list of legal demands.

In the meantime, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said the company is taking steps to ensure such an event doesn’t happen again. He first talked about how AI can be useful, but that Reddit works specifically because of the human element.

An increasing amount of the content you see online is generated by machines—so how does AI fit into the most human place on the internet? First, AI can be incredibly useful for things like summarization, safety, translation, and moderation. That includes filters that reduce the burden on mods by automatically removing spam, hateful, or violent content. And it powers things like post guidance, which can tell a user whether their post violates a subreddit rule before they submit it—this helps new users learn the rules and also saves mods lots of time. Reddit’s strength is in its people, and we want AI tools that help you do what you’re already doing.

That said, unwelcome AI in communities is a serious concern. It is the worry I hear most often these days from users and mods alike. Reddit works because it’s human. It’s one of the few places online where real people share real opinions. That authenticity is what gives Reddit its value. If we lose trust in that, we lose what makes Reddit…Reddit. Our focus is, and always will be, on keeping Reddit a trusted place for human conversation.

At the same time, anonymity is essential to Reddit. People come here to share experiences they wouldn’t post anywhere else because they know they are safe to do so. To make this possible, historically, Reddit has required practically no information to create an account. We have been—and will continue to be—extremely protective of your personal information, and will continue to push back against excessive or unreasonable demands from public or private authorities. If you want to know more about how we respond to legal requests from governments, law enforcement, and private parties, check out our biannual Transparency Report.

Huffman then went on to say the platform would start requiring users to prove their human, but he was quick to point out that Reddit will continue respect the anonymity that helps make the platform popular.

To keep Reddit human and to meet evolving regulatory requirements, we are going to need a little more information. Specifically, we will need to know whether you are a human, and in some locations, if you are an adult. But we never want to know your name or who you are. The way we will do this is by working with various third-party services that can provide us with the essential information and nothing else. No solution is perfect—including the status quo—but we will do our best to preserve both the humanness and anonymity of Reddit. We will share more as we go.

The revelation is sure to upset many users. That being said, Reddit does appear to be trying to strike a balance between maintaining user anonymity and protecting users from AI and AI-based experiments.