Renée DiResta

Much of the research and discourse on risks from artificial intelligence (AI) image generators, such as DALL-E and Midjourney, has centered around whether they could be used to inject false information into political discourse. We show that spammers and scammers—seemingly motivated by profit or clout, not ideology—are already using AI-generated images to gain significant traction on Facebook.

Researchers of foreign and domestic influence operations document tactics that frequently recur in covert propaganda campaigns on social media, including backstopping fake personas with plausible biographies or histories, using GAN-generated images as profile photos, and outsourcing account management to paid organizations.