Manipulation of public opinion

Sub-category

Risk Domain

4Malicious Actors & Misuse

4.1Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale

Using AI systems to conduct large-scale disinformation campaigns, malicious surveillance, or targeted and sophisticated automated censorship and propaganda, with the aim of manipulating political processes, public opinion, and behavior.

"Malicious actors can use general- purpose AI to generate fake content such as text, images, or videos, for attempts to manipulate public opinion. Researchers believe that if successful, such attempts could have several harmful consequences."(p. 67)

Entity— Who or what caused the harm

Human

Due to a decision or action made by humans

AI system

Due to a decision or action made by an AI system

Other

Due to some other reason or is ambiguous

Intent— Whether the harm was intentional or accidental

Intentional

Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal

Unintentional

Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal

Other

Without clearly specifying the intentionality

Timing— Whether the risk is pre- or post-deployment

Pre-deployment

Occurring before the AI is deployed

Post-deployment

Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed

Other

Without a clearly specified time of occurrence

Supporting Evidence (1)

"General-purpose AI can generate potentially persuasive content at unprecedented scale and with a high degree of sophistication. Previously, generating content to manipulate public opinion often involved a strong trade- off between quality and quantity. General- purpose AI outputs, however, are often indistinguishable to people from content generated by humans, and generating them is extremely cheap. Some studies have also found them to be as persuasive as human- generated content."(p. 67)

Part of Risks from malicious use