Scientists are raising alarms about the potential influence of artificial intelligence on elections, according to a spate of new studies that warn AI can rig polls and manipulate public opinion. In a study published in Nature on Thursday, scientists report that AI chatbots can meaningfully sway people toward a particular candidate—providing better results than video or television ads. Moreover, chatbots optimized for political persuasion “may increasingly deploy misleading or false information,” according to a separate study published on Thursday in Science. Archive: archive.today/9Jq17

If all you do is read the little statements booklet they send out, and then do the mail vote based on that, then AI is not in the loop unless the candidate is dumb enough to paste chatbot output into their statement. Seriously people, get your friends and family off of the ragebait rectangle. Most “news” media today is just opinion wrapped with ads about content they bought from Reuters and AP.