Open Access

PNAS Nexus

, volume 3 , issue 2

How persuasive is AI-generated propaganda?

Josh A. Goldstein ¹

Jason Chao ²

Shelby Grossman ²

Alex Stamos ²

Michael R. Tomz ³

Hide authors affiliations Show authors affiliations: 3 affiliations

Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University , Washington, DC 20001 , USA |

Stanford Internet Observatory, Stanford University , Stanford, CA 94305 , USA |

Department of Political Science and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University , Stanford, CA 94305 , USA |

Publication type: Journal Article

Publication date: 2024-02-01

Oxford University Press

PNAS Nexus

scimago Q1

wos Q1

SJR: 1.198

CiteScore: 3.5

Impact factor: 3.8

ISSN: 27526542

DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae034

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PubMed ID: 38380055

Abstract

Can large language models, a form of artificial intelligence (AI), generate persuasive propaganda? We conducted a preregistered survey experiment of US respondents to investigate the persuasiveness of news articles written by foreign propagandists compared to content generated by GPT-3 davinci (a large language model). We found that GPT-3 can create highly persuasive text as measured by participants’ agreement with propaganda theses. We further investigated whether a person fluent in English could improve propaganda persuasiveness. Editing the prompt fed to GPT-3 and/or curating GPT-3’s output made GPT-3 even more persuasive, and, under certain conditions, as persuasive as the original propaganda. Our findings suggest that propagandists could use AI to create convincing content with limited effort.

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Goldstein J. A. et al. How persuasive is AI-generated propaganda? // PNAS Nexus. 2024. Vol. 3. No. 2.

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Goldstein J. A., Chao J., Grossman S., Stamos A., Tomz M. R. How persuasive is AI-generated propaganda? // PNAS Nexus. 2024. Vol. 3. No. 2.

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