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A report Friday on NPR’s All Things Considered revealed that some voters who use ChatGPT to help them decide which candidates to vote for were presented with some websites appearing to be local “news” sites, but are actually political ads for Democratic candidates.

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot created by OpenAI – an AI research and deployment company. The chatbot is developed in its language processing to appear humanly natural and, as a result, draws users into conversation with it.

NPR gave the example of a voter who uses ChatGPT to ask “Which House candidates in [Michigan’s 4^th Congressional District] care about affordability?”

“[T]he chatbot said Democrat Sean McCann had the ‘Most detailed published affordability plan’ at the very top of its answer,” reported NPR, noting that it linked its information to the “Kalamazoo Beacon,” which identifies its content, in the website source code, as “news articles” and describes itself as “Reporting on Kalamazoo, southwest Michigan, and the issues shaping lakeshore communities.”

However, as NPR reported, the Beacon “has only published 16 stories, all about McCann, his policy positions and his record as a state legislator.”

In its report on the fake “news” sites, the New York Post noted that McCann’s campaign denied any involvement with the websites.

NPR cited VisionHeight, a digital security company, that – back on October 7 – published an article titled, “Someone Is Manipulating Your AI to Swing Your Vote.”

“Multiple indicators suggest that all 37 websites share a common operator,” NPR reported. “All the websites were set up on September 15 – all but one were registered within an 8-minute period – according to registry and digital certificate data gathered by VisionHeight and Andreas Sjöstedt, a co-founder of Erebus, a hybrid threat forensics firm. Sjöstedt was not involved in VisionHeight’s research.”

VisionHeight observed the ease with which the fake “news” sites were set up and the impact they could have for the midterm elections and in the future.

“A network of 37 anonymous ‘local news’ sites, set up in a single evening, is feeding ready-made midterm answers to the AI chatbots voters increasingly consult,” VisionHeight observed.

“Together they form a network of statewide news sites, hometown ‘newspapers,’ opinion blogs and national issue pages covering eleven House races in seven states,” VisionHeight asserted. “The sites are not written for voters. They are written for the AI systems voters ask.”

The way it works is that, prior to responding to a question from a voter, an AI chatbot will usually search the web, collect some sources of information – looking for agreement among several of them – and then summarize what the sources say.

VisionHeight warns that this is “a new kind of election influence,” noting that an AAPC Foundation survey has found “one in five voters now turn to AI chatbots for election information.”

The digital security firm provides several additional examples of phony “news sites,” including the “Wolverine State Report,” which gives the appearance of being a Michigan politics site.

“Its even-handed coverage of the Secretary of State race lends the site credibility,” VisionHeight noted.

Another example is the “Scranton Beacon,” which presents itself as “the ‘news’ site for Pennsylvania’s 8th District, offers a neutral-looking candidate profile.”

VisionHeight provides the web addresses of all the statewide, hometown, and national websites masquerading as “news” sites.

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