Networks in China and Iran also used AI models to create and post disinformation but campaigns did not reach large audiences
In Russia, two operations created and spread content criticizing the US, Ukraine and several Baltic nations. One of the operations used an OpenAI model to debug code and create a bot that posted on Telegram. China’s influence operation generated text in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, which operatives then posted on Twitter and Medium.
Iranian actors generated full articles that attacked the US and Israel, which they translated into English and French. An Israeli political firm called Stoic ran a network of fake social media accounts which created a range of content, including posts accusing US student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza of being antisemitic.
Before there was ChatGPT to blame, we had the “50 cent army.” The fully automated bullshit generators are a cheaper but also a less effective way to do what was already being done. I expect the real problem is somewhere closer to the design of mass social media and the human weaknesses it has evolved to exploit, not so much the super-human powers of generative AI which have been so greatly exaggerated.