According to a recent report by OpenAI, an Israeli firm named STOIC tried to influence Indian elections using ChatGPT but was thwarted by OpenAI.
Four days before the results of the Lok Sabha elections are announced, OpenAI made a stunning announcement claiming that it has thwarted clandestine efforts that aimed to manipulate Indian elections through the use of AI models.
A for-hire Israeli company “began generating comments that focused on India, criticized the ruling BJP party and praised the opposition Congress party,” according to an OpenAI threat intelligence study.
According to the study, the activity centered on Indian polls was reported in May, and it further states that the “network was operated by STOIC, a political campaign management firm in Israel”.
OpenAI elaborated on efforts over the past three months to disrupt covert influence operations using AI models for tasks such as generating comments and articles, creating social media personas, conducting research, debugging code, and translating texts. Specifically, the disruptions included:
- Bad Grammar: A Russian operation primarily on Telegram targeting Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic States, and the United States. It used AI models to debug code for a Telegram bot and create political comments in Russian and English.
- Doppelganger: Another Russian operation generating comments in multiple languages posted on X and 9GAG, translating and editing articles for affiliated websites, and converting news articles into Facebook posts.
- Spamouflage: A Chinese network utilizing AI to research social media activity, generate multilingual texts for platforms like X, Medium, and Blogspot, and debug code for managing databases and websites, including the domain revealscum[.]com.
- International Union of Virtual Media (IUVM): An Iranian operation using AI to generate and translate long-form articles, headlines, and website tags published on iuvmpress[.]co.
- Zero Zeno: A commercial Israeli company, STOIC, uses AI to generate articles and comments for platforms like Instagram, Facebook, X, and related websites.
These many operations provided content on a wide range of topics, including the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the situation in Gaza, the elections in India, politics in Europe and the US, and criticisms of the Chinese government by foreign countries and Chinese dissidents.
“While we observed these threat actors using our models for a range of IO, they all attempted to deceive people about who they were or what they were trying to achieve,” the report mentions.
The report goes on to say that content for the covert operations was created and edited using several identities that were run out of Israel. The videos were posted on YouTube, X, Facebook, Instagram, and websites.
“In early May, it (the network) began targeting audiences in India with English-language content,” the report claims.
Founded in December 2015, OpenAI is a research organization focused on artificial intelligence.
Union Minister of Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar responded to the study by saying, “It is absolutely clear and obvious that BJP was and is the target of influence operations, misinformation, and foreign interference, being done by and/or on behalf of some Indian political parties.”
It poses a “dangerous threat” to the nation’s democracy, according to him.
“It is clear: vested interests in India and outside are clearly driving this and needs to be deeply scrutinized/investigated and exposed,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar said.
“My view at this point is that these platforms could have released this much earlier, and not so late when elections are ending,” he added.
China-based network peddling pro-Khalistan agenda
According to a report published by Meta, they have eliminated multiple Instagram profiles, pages, and groups that were directed at the Sikh community residing in India, Australia, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Nigeria. The study states that the network was founded in China.
“The operation used compromised and fake accounts to pose as Sikhs, post content, and manage Pages and Groups,” the report claims.
It goes on to say that the network invented a “fictitious activist movement called Operation K” that called for demonstrations in support of Sikhs.
“We found and removed this activity early before it was able to build an audience among authentic communities,” the report mentions.
The network used photographs “likely manipulated by photo editing tools or generated by artificial intelligence” and uploaded news stories largely in Hindi and English.
Content that Meta highlighted included articles regarding floods in the Punjab region, the global Sikh community, the movement in favor of Khalistan, the Canadian death of terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and articles that were critical of the Indian government.
Recently, GreatGameIndia reported on a 2021 Time article titled “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election,” in which author Molly Ball described how a “well-funded cabal” influenced the 2020 US election, with expectations for what lies ahead in 2024.
You can read the report below attached below:
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