Experten warnen vor einer Bedrohung der Demokratie durch „KI-Bot-Schwärme“, die soziale Medien befallen

Political leaders could soon launch swarms of human-imitating AI agents to reshape public opinion in a way that threatens to undermine democracy, a high profile group of experts in AI and online misinformation has warned.

The Nobel peace prize-winning free-speech activist Maria Ressa, and leading AI and social science researchers from Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and Yale are among a global consortium flagging the new “disruptive threat” posed by hard-to-detect, malicious “AI swarms” infesting social media and messaging channels

A would-be autocrat could use such swarms to persuade populations to accept cancelled elections or overturn results, they said, amid predictions the technology could be deployed at scale by the time of the US presidential election in 2028.

The warnings, published today in Science, come alongside calls for coordinated global action to counter the risk, including “swarm scanners” and watermarked content to counter AI-run misinformation campaigns. Early versions of AI-powered influence operations have been used in the 2024 elections in Taiwan, India and Indonesia.

There’s only one solution. We’re all going to have to quit social media. Too bad, so sad…

For some time ago we have been seeing a significant increase in the number of bots on social media, bot farms benefiting a political party, religion, or different trends, which represents a real risk and distortion of information and violates the right to the truth about what is being reported.

Unfortunately, this has been an issue for over a decade. Many people I speak to blame people for manipulation, unless they’re personally inconvenienced by it.

not just AI, I could tell some of the comments on American politics are from people who have never been here

AI is ruining everything, isn’t it?

Lol. Welcome to Reddit.

This is literally what happens in Cyberpunk 2077 and they had to abandon the old internet lmao

Warn of *threat* to democracy? As if it hasn’t been an active undermining of democracy for several years already?

They are alll over reddit.

That headline is a bit late.

it happens on here. just look at r/conservatives

Without the ‘AI’ this should’ve been a 2008 headline

The Cold War never ended. Russia regrouped and realized that although they could never win a tangible weapons race, bots & trolls are WAAAAAAYYYY cheaper

By the early 00’s, everyone in the west had a computer in their pocket. And DC dinosaurs wouldn’t update laws fast enough

A disinformation campaign started against the west and as really a social engineering by our enemies to sway public opinion and create chaos

Loss of trust in medicine

Loss of trust in free elections

Spearfishing western business and government leaders.

Republicans now hate democracy & are subservient to Russia

And this was all laid out & published by the Russians in [1997](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics)

It’s happened a bit differently but the directives are clearly stated.

W or Obama should have responded with cruise missiles. And now society will collapse.

Unfortunately for Russia- theirs will collapse first.

You’d think someone would have created a platform only accessible by people verified to actually exist by now. Ideally only allowing access to state/local/national discussions by people verified to live in those areas. Though having a limit on user growth and non-partisan moderation is probably unprofitable and unfeasible so it’ll never happen.

yeah we noticed a long time ago. thanks.

Water is wet.