Experts warn of threat to democracy from ‘AI bot swarms’ infesting social media
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/22/experts-warn-of-threat-to-democracy-by-ai-bot-swarms-infesting-social-media
Experts warn of threat to democracy from ‘AI bot swarms’ infesting social media
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/22/experts-warn-of-threat-to-democracy-by-ai-bot-swarms-infesting-social-media
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“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](https://www.theguardian.com/world/taiwan), India and Indonesia.”
“If these bots start to evolve into a collective and exchange information to solve a problem – in this case a malicious goal, namely analysing a community and finding a weak spot – then coordination will increase their accuracy and efficiency.”
AI is the modern day Hit1er. It is literally trying to [kill of people of a certain religion.](https://techbronerd.substack.com/p/ai-researchers-found-an-exploit-which)
AI needs regulation.
It’s already happened. AI is just taking over what human bots did in the past.
And just imagine, Virginia is pushing to make hand counting ballots illegal while expanding online voting and extending ballot counting time.
To be fair, always felt the mass ignorance (does not necessarily mean “*uneducated*”) of many individuals was a threat to democracy.
Looking at the USA in its current state… seriously… what democracy?
If you get your view of democracy from social media, then you are a sheep.
All of the paid ads and bots on social media now and you do not consider yourself influenced?
Everyone is already compromised by social media. It’s why twitter turned to X and every one that didn’t fit the new narrative of X moved to blue sky. It’s why people switch from CNN to MSNBC or Fox based on their views. Every day someone will block a social media account because they don’t like the view of that person.
We make our own soap boxes and echo chambers…
Part of the reason is that many platforms don’t have strong incentives to stop astroturfing and bots, because it gives them more engagement. Other platforms that require verifications are often lost in the noise and never gain popularity.
I imagine counter bot swarms will be deployed as well. Here comes the dead internet.