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Intelligence officials from three countries have reported a Russian influence crusade over synthetic intelligence to create around 1,000 fake accounts on social media platform X.
By Steven Lee Myers and Julian E. Barnes
The Justice Department said Tuesday it made the decision to disrupt a covert Russian influence operation that used synthetic intelligence to spread propaganda to the United States, Europe and Israel in an effort to undermine Ukraine and stoke internal political divisions.
Working with the governments of Canada and the Netherlands, as well as officials from Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, the branch said it seized two web domain names in the U. S. The U. S. government got rid of 968 inauthentic accounts created through the Russian government after its attack. on Ukraine began in 2022.
In affidavits released with the announcement, officials from the Justice Department, the FBI and the Pentagon’s National Cyber Mission Force have linked this effort to Russia’s Federal Security Service and RT, the state television network that offers English-language channels. several other languages.
The discovery of such a vast global network of robots showed widespread warnings that the popularization of future AI would not be a reality. These equipment would facilitate the production and distribution of questionable content. Thanks to AI, data campaigns can be created in minutes – the kind of paintings that, for example, in the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, required an army of painters in the workplace.
The Russian network used artificial intelligence-enhanced software to create dozens of fictitious user profiles on X. It did so by registering users with email accounts on two web domains, mlrtr. com and otanmail. com. (NATO, coincidentally, is the French acronym for the NATO alliance. ) At that point, the software can generate posts for the accounts, and even repost, like, and comment on posts from other bots on the network.
Both domain names were founded in the United States but controlled by Russian administrators, who used the accounts to advertise propaganda produced through the RT television channel. In a statement, the F. B. I. director, Christopher A. Wray called it “an AI-enhanced generative social media bot farm. “
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