Some experts say false narratives generated by artificial intelligence can pose a threat to global politics. Brett Benson, associate professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, joins "The Takeout" to explain why he believes the era of AI propaganda is here.

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Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to generate and spread false narratives online, posing significant challenges to democratic processes and institutions. Brett Benson, a political science associate professor at Vanderbilt University, highlights findings from the Institute of National Security regarding Golaxy, a Chinese company specializing in AI-driven data analytics and influence operations. Golaxy collects vast amounts of open-source user data, builds detailed behavioral profiles, and deploys realistic AI-generated personas to disseminate politically-aligned content.

Golaxy has reportedly operated during key political events in Hong Kong and Taiwan, with ongoing research into the effectiveness of such influence campaigns. Benson emphasizes the importance of public vigilance, government and private sector collaboration, and academic research to understand and counteract AI-driven propaganda. The conversation draws parallels to platforms like TikTok but notes that AI bots, rather than humans, are the primary influencers in these operations.

The rising threat of AI propaganda

Welcome back. Online misinformation, the form of lies and abusive speech, well, that's long posed significant problems and threats to our democratic conversations and the institutions built around them. But according to this new opinion piece in The New York Times, false narratives generated by artificial intelligence are a far greater danger to global politics. The article's co-author, Brett Benson, joins me now. He is an associate professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and a faculty affiliate at its Institute of National Security. Brett, I'm glad you joined me. Thanks so much. Your piece in The New York Times focuses on what the Institute of National Security uncovered about a Chinese company called, if I get this correct, Golaxy? What is it and what does it do? So Golaxy is a Chinese company that specializes in AI-driven data analytics and also state-aligned influence operations. There are really three parts to what it does. The first part is that it collects massive amounts of open-source online user data. So just to give an idea, Golaxy, on a daily basis, it scrapes millions of data points from places like Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, WeChat, and other online platforms. And so it holds data on tens of thousands of individuals and organizations in Hong Kong, Taiwan, now the United States, as well as China. The second part to what it does is that it builds political and behavioral profiles of users and organizations. It builds these based upon how users interact in social media platforms. And then the third thing that it does is that it produces and disseminates politically-aligned content to steer public opinion through what we call personas. These are fake but highly realistic AI-generated bots that are basically made of online profiles that look and are intended to act like a real person. And it does this for the purpose of securing political content. And has this had an effect on the dialogue or the outcomes of political conversations in Hong Kong and or Taiwan? So what the documents reveal that we analyzed is that Golaxy claims to have had operations in Hong Kong during the national security law uproar, as well as the 2024 Taiwan elections. An ongoing research question for us is really just how effective these types of operations are in the real world, how effective they are at influencing individuals, how effective they are at moving public opinion. That's an open question that we're studying. Is there an America angle to this, members of Congress, things like that, who should be alerted and maybe thinking about legislation or other ways to block it? I think there is an American angle. I think it's threefold, to be frank. I think on one level, users should be really vigilant. So public awareness is a key part of this. They should be vigilant about how they engage in their online activity and how they might be influenced by their online activity. TikTok is a really useful analogy here. It's a platform that a lot of users are familiar with. It tracks what people watch, like, share, what they re-watch, and then it uses that data to show more content. And over time, its algorithm fine-tunes to individuals' preferences. Golaxy does a similar thing, except that while TikTok is pushing lifestyle and entertainment content, what Galaxy is doing is targeting with politically aligned AI operations. And while TikTok's influencers are human, on this platform, the AI-generated bots and personas are really the influencers. So on one level, what is really needed is a lot of increased vigilance by users. What government can do and what private organizations can do in partnering with each other, this is an area that we tend to dive deeper into at the Institute. But then on a third level— I've got about 20 seconds, Brett, so I need you to be quick on this. Yeah, there's a huge role for universities to play, for researchers, because understanding how effective this is and what its role is in society and how to generate detection mechanisms, that's something that we can do. Vanderbilt University's Brett Benson. I appreciate the time, sir. Thank you. Thank you.

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The rising threat of AI propaganda

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