In a test of how online technology could be used to interfere with the upcoming presidential election, 6 in 10 people could not tell the difference between a real speech from President Trump and a fake one generated through artificial intelligence.
In a unique project shared with Secrets, a computer program dubbed “RoboTrump” successfully wrote passages of Trump-like speeches that tricked Americans, especially Trump supporters.
Overall, the correct source — Trump or RoboTrump — was picked 40% of the time, according to the project’s manager Lawsuit.org.
The analysis said, “While Trump’s rambling style probably makes differentiating between real and fake more difficult than it would be for a more eloquent and talented speaker, today’s new natural language generation AI models have reached a tipping point in their ability to generate fake, real-sounding text.”
The key findings from the analysis were:
- On average, most of the 1,000 participants did “worse than chance,” getting it right just 40% of the time.
- Trump supporters were more likely to think that AI-generated text was real.
- Younger people were overall more likely to believe the AI-generated content was real.
The project tested 20 different paragraphs on 10 topics. In some, it was easier to tell which was real or not because of the use of words and styles different from what the president uses. The AI system used bragging and repetitive phrases to stylistically mimic Trump.
The goal was to raise awareness about the use of fake speeches and words that might be used online during the election.
And it worked. Lawsuit.org said that those who took the test said afterward that they are more concerned about fake stories than before.
“After taking the quiz, 43% said they were more concerned about the implications of AI-generated text on the 2020 election than prior to taking the quiz,” according to the website.
It added, “Given that RoboTrump could crank out literally millions to billions of words per day, you can imagine how this technology could be used to manipulate opinion. Bots leveraging this tech could spam blogs, social media posts, etc. The volume of realistically generated text in Trump’s (or anyone else’s) style will enable massive disinformation campaigns of staggering volume and reach.”
