AI bots flooded 2023 UK government consultation on disposable vapes ban
TL;DR
Three-quarters of all responses were machine-generated in failed attempt to stop bill from passing into law, research finds AI bots flooded a government consultation with tens of thousands of fake responses in a failed attempt to stop the UK’s ban on disposable vapes. Three-quarters of all the responses to the 2023 consultation on the tobacco and vapes bill were machine-generated, in what is thought to be the first coordinated attempt to use AI to derail health policymaking in the UK. Continue reading...
Nauti's Take
The practical lesson for AI workflows is to verify where input comes from: a large volume of similar responses is not reliable evidence of genuine demand. Teams using surveys or community feedback should check for duplicates, writing patterns, timestamps, and sender provenance before turning the data into product decisions or policy recommendations.
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