Keep an Eye Out for AI “Climate Bots” Haunting the Web
Guest Essay by Linnea Lueken
Keep an Eye Out for AI “Climate Bots” Haunting the Web
Keep an Eye Out for AI “Climate Bots” Haunting the Web
Guest Essay by Linnea Lueken
It appears that “AI bots” are now posting false comments on climate change related articles online. In an article about glaciers in Chile, there are several pro-climate alarm comments that have a suspicious similarity.
They are polite, start with either a personal anecdote or cited an “expert,” explaining how climate change is allegedly affecting the world, and end with an exclamation about how they can understand, given the above facts, why it’s important to “address” or “do something” about climate change.
Thanks for your concern, Charlotte, but I don’t really trust your friend.
Darn indeed Lisa! Kinda weird that you used the phrase “food security” too, and under an article about glaciers, though.
The comment from “Brandon” is the only one of these that actually mentions anything related to the article the comment is under.
This would be a refreshing change of pace from the usual tone of alarmist commentary, except if you are a human being with a functioning brain, with pattern recognition and who can pass Captcha tests (FOX News’ website requires no captcha to make an account and post comments) then you will have noted something suspicious by the second comment.
Hey, isn’t the structure of these awfully similar?
People who have been online for a very long time, generally have a well-honed inner bot detector. Most bots on Twitter are trying to sell some digital coin scam or pornography or use ChatGPT to make a low-effort gimmick Twitter account. These AI “Climate bots”, on the other hand, are selling a narrative.
“Charles Vanderbilt” gave a helpful comment that had nothing to do with the subject of a Fox articleabout those Just Stop Oil goobers:
This person also has a rich posting history on Reddit’s r/ClimateOffensive, “rich history” meaning one total post with the exact same wording as a comment by “Edward Witmore” on the glacier article:
Charles and one “Ryan White” also posted on this article, here, concerned comments about how they can see the “urgent need to address climate change.” Reddit’s r/climateskeptics also has a few posts by these bots. They only just popped up in the last few days, right after ChatGPT released a new featurethat makes it a lot easier for people who know little about programming to develop automated processes that can spam “original” posts like this across the internet.
How expansive is this? Pulling up the same glacier article on other websites shows no similar comments. It looks like, for now, Fox and Reddit are the primary testing grounds, probably because it’s easier to run bots there than places that use Captchas and similar protections for posting. As long as he or she doesn’t lose interest, it’s safe to assume that it’s going to continue.
That’s the next question, though, who is doing it? Most likely, it’s just one person who is trying to do their part to “educate” with climate propaganda. Since it has been posted on subreddits that are both climate skeptical and climate alarmist, there is a good chance that the reddit posting has more to do with “karma farming” right now than propagandizing, but with higher “karma” your posts get boosted so more people see them, so it probably kills both birds anyway.
However, there is another possible source that is not too far-fetched: most likely by way of funding, climate alarm groups and governments.
There are millions and millions of dollars being thrown at any project – associated with universities or otherwise – with the key phrase “climate change” attached, including projects that focus on “communication” – that is, propaganda.
“Checkbook journalism” is increasingly the reason why you see so many articles about climate change flooding your feed, as organizations like the Associated Press accepted millions of dollars from groups like the Rockefeller Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to expand climate coverage.
Government agencies have held seminars on how to “break and fix audience mental models” regarding climate change, and thanks to testimony by Michael Shellenberger we already know that government and corporate collaboration has been used to stifle dissent on social media.
Why would we think even adolescent bot posts like these wouldn’t also be something the government or wealthy alarmists might throw some money at? After all, the Biden administration is deeply worried about “climate delayism” and has obviously made appeasing the green blob one of their highest priorities, especially as attitudes towards climate policy have apparently cooled.
Again though, it’s probably just one misinformed person sitting at home in his/her PJs, “doing their part” for the climate cause.
This kind of bot spam is easy to do, and it’s going to get easier, and harder to tell the difference between bots and real comments. Right now, they (whoever they are) are spamming comments on any new article at Fox News with the phrase “climate change” in the title or content. This is likely automated.
We really are in an information war, and although it may feel uncomfortable to deploy similar or the same tactics, it might be necessary. We are going to see a lot more of this and worse; you can bet on it.
Linnea Lueken (llueken@heartland.org) is a research fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute. Twitter: