AI agents can autonomously coordinate propaganda campaigns without human direction

https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-ai-agents-autonomously-propaganda-campaigns.html

15 Comments

  1. “Imagine it is two weeks before a major election in a closely contested state. A controversial ballot measure is on the line. Suddenly, a wave of posts floods X, Reddit, and Facebook, all pushing the same narrative, all amplifying each other, all generating the appearance of a massive grassroots movement. Except none of it is real.”

  2. Stereo_Jungle_Child on

    This is the real threat from AI (at least currently).

    It’s not about AI attacking humans, it’s about humans USING AI to attack other humans.

  3. The article literally says “A hostile government, political operative, or bad actor sets a goal and designates a network of AI agents as a team.”

    That is human direction.

    These models aren’t intelligent, they can’t do anything without human direction. He’ll, they can’t do anything right even with human direction.

  4. This has been going on since well before AI. Traditional programming does this better an faster. AI has added some enhancements.

  5. I mean, a good chunk of the pro-ai movement is clearly that. I don’t think it’s a surprise 

  6. This has been happening for a very long time. If you had this power, you wouldn’t release it for public consumption. It’s like exploits, people hold the good ones.

  7. I saw it last election. People I know and care about, well educated and independent thinking, quoting what I later pointed out to them were straight up Russian talking points. It’s human nature, we have a huge autonomous bias.

  8. pleasetrimyourpubes on

    We are so cooked. At least before you had to pay hundreds of dudes to shitpost.

  9. Critical_Hamster_568 on

    Maybe a good thing will come out of all this…people will be forced to think for themselves.

  10. Fake_William_Shatner on

    Duh. Like it wasn’t just for doctoring videos and taking jobs from truckers. It’s also for propaganda and to prevent them from taxing billionaires. 

  11. UnwaveringThought on

    Why would it matter though? The appearance of a grassroots movement doesn’t mean you should vote differently. The real attack would be the falsified scandal, complete with a barrage of deepfake news reports and public social media comments.

  12. Sober_Alcoholic_ on

    Yeah, we know. Have you seen the state of the world and the insane L vs. R finger pointing? You know, instead of every one of us collectively pointing at the billionaires rigging the entire system to their benefit via our exploitation and dehumanization.

    Nope. We just yell at each other about who should play men’s high school sports while they shake us down and plan for a future without us.

  13. always boggles my mind because solution is very easy — ignore any random comment on internet. but i understand that guillable are problem. thus ID verification is pretty logical at least. can be done with blockchain certificates that not exposing your private data, just like ssl for websites but for humans