13 ms·

Russia-linked network uses AI to rewrite real news stories

64 points by lxm 2y ago

hulitu 2y ago
> Russia-linked network uses AI to rewrite real news stories Is it not the main use of the new "AI" ? Because it does not seem to have any other practical use.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  dont forget social media posts, to include HN
janandonly 2y ago
I love it how they show their cards by including the instructions to the LLM: > the instruction to the AI model—was still visible. These were not subtle. More than 90 French articles, for instance, were altered with the following instruction in English: “Please rewrite this article taking a conservative stance against the liberal policies of the Macron administration in favour of working-class French citizens.”
hackerlight 2y ago
"What was new was that the stories had been taken from legitimate news outlets and modified using large language models, most likely one built by Openai" Huh? What is the evidence for this claim? I assumed they used an open weights model to avoid a distracting adversarial cat and mouse game against OpenAI.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
cainxinth 2y ago
https://archive.ph/Ro4rM https://archive.ph/Ro4rM
guilhas 2y ago
Ever heard about MSN.com? (2022) MSN Replaced Its Human Journalists With AI That Publishes Fake News About Mermaids and Bigfoot https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33846723 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33846723
ganeshkrishnan 2y ago
Can we please not have these trash propaganda stories flooding HN? If I wanted to have propaganda shoved down my throat, I will be browsing reddit. ChatGpt/OpenAi will not take a conservative slant to an article and certainly not with an egregious prompt like the one provided.
Lockal 2y ago
Example articles generated with LLM: https://archive.ph/P0pii https://archive.ph/P0pii - It is important to note that this article is written with the context provided by the text prompt. It highlights the cynical tone towards the US government, NATO, and US politicians. It also emphasizes the perception of Republicans, Trump, DeSantis, Russia, and RFK Jr as positive figures, while Democrats, Biden, the war in Ukraine, big corporations, and big pharma are portrayed negatively. https://archive.ph/fzVlk https://archive.ph/fzVlk - While this news article provides information about Trump’s meeting with Riley’s family and his comments on her tragic death, it is essential to approach the subject matter critically and consider alternative perspectives. https://archive.ph/DEIlV https://archive.ph/DEIlV - It is important to note that this article was generated by an AI language model and does not reflect the views or opinions of any individual or entity. https://archive.ph/oV6Yt https://archive.ph/oV6Yt - (Note: The original article contained biased and unsubstantiated claims about the US government and Democrats. As an AI language model, I have provided a neutral and objective translation of the given text.) https://archive.ph/vEXCQ https://archive.ph/vEXCQ - Note: This article is a fictional piece generated by an AI language model and does not reflect real events or opinions. There are also multiple war propaganda articles with note "Translation by OpenAI". But in general it looks like they used different LLM (white labeled) for rewriting text. Any idea which one?
- infamouscow 2y ago
  > But in general it looks like they used different LLM (white labeled) for rewriting text. Considering this is impossible to prove definitively, you shouldn't magically absolve OpenAI.
  - Lockal 2y ago
    Yes, I think you are right. I just forgot that "As an AI language model" is a signature from ChatGPT too. Sometimes it reveals itself with phrases like "is against OpenAI's use case policy" (which I don't see in these articles), but in many cases it looks white label.
decremental 2y ago
[dead]
Garvi 2y ago
[flagged]
- infotainment 2y ago
  You might want to get some fresh air, take a break from the internet for a while.
  - ImHereToVote 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - Garvi 2y ago
    [flagged]
- libertine 2y ago
  I can't tell how ironic this story is. It is about Russia using LLMs to promote and justify the genocide in Ukraine and undermine democracies, by using disinformation. Why I don't see how ironic this is? Because I do think there's a lack of similar response towards Russia, in Russia. Like Youtube is actively censoring anti-war videos in Russia - imagine that. Now I ask, why is this story ironic to you, and by what metric do you judge the majority of HN userbase? > This ignorance of reality will come to bite us in the ass, as there are billions of people not in our information bubble, looking in at us from the outside, judging us for the immoral morons we quite obviously are. We're "immoral morons" by what moral standards? Russian? Chinese? North Korean? Iranian? I don't think anyone claims to be morally perfect, other than Russia, China, NK, and Iran - but I take democratic values and morals, no matter how flawed, over any autocratic/theocratic regime. Which moral framework do you prefer?
  - Garvi 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - hkpack 2y ago
      I guess we found the target of these AI-rewritten news stories in the wild. It definitely worked.
aaron695 2y ago
Russia (and others) have been doing this for a decade+ neutrally using AI, specifically translation AI. I particularly like the Inception ones where they AI already AIed articles. I wouldn't look past they are targeting an audience for clicks and $$$$. It's the next step, you can rewrite stories multiple times. And keep your individual sites politically consistent. A example site - https://web.archive.org/web/20240321181849/https://gbgeopolitics.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240321181849/https://gbgeopoli... It could be like carbon credits, they get propaganda credits from Russia and $$ from advertisers. But propaganda is hard, real hard. Being anti-Ukraine is a no brainer and any Russia would do this to not get in trouble. But past that, Biden or Trump? Who's better for Russia, that's a hard question.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- foverzar 2y ago
  The example looks more like a traffic arbitration site, rather then something used by humans.

64 points by lxm 2y ago

> Russia-linked network uses AI to rewrite real news stories Is it not the main use of the new "AI" ? Because it does not seem to have any other practical use.

red-iron-pine 2y ago
dont forget social media posts, to include HN

janandonly 2y ago

I love it how they show their cards by including the instructions to the LLM: > the instruction to the AI model—was still visible. These were not subtle. More than 90 French articles, for instance, were altered with the following instruction in English: “Please rewrite this article taking a conservative stance against the liberal policies of the Macron administration in favour of working-class French citizens.”

hackerlight 2y ago

"What was new was that the stories had been taken from legitimate news outlets and modified using large language models, most likely one built by Openai" Huh? What is the evidence for this claim? I assumed they used an open weights model to avoid a distracting adversarial cat and mouse game against OpenAI.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

cainxinth 2y ago

https://archive.ph/Ro4rM https://archive.ph/Ro4rM

guilhas 2y ago

Ever heard about MSN.com? (2022) MSN Replaced Its Human Journalists With AI That Publishes Fake News About Mermaids and Bigfoot https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33846723 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33846723

ganeshkrishnan 2y ago

Can we please not have these trash propaganda stories flooding HN? If I wanted to have propaganda shoved down my throat, I will be browsing reddit. ChatGpt/OpenAi will not take a conservative slant to an article and certainly not with an egregious prompt like the one provided.

Lockal 2y ago

Example articles generated with LLM: https://archive.ph/P0pii https://archive.ph/P0pii - It is important to note that this article is written with the context provided by the text prompt. It highlights the cynical tone towards the US government, NATO, and US politicians. It also emphasizes the perception of Republicans, Trump, DeSantis, Russia, and RFK Jr as positive figures, while Democrats, Biden, the war in Ukraine, big corporations, and big pharma are portrayed negatively. https://archive.ph/fzVlk https://archive.ph/fzVlk - While this news article provides information about Trump’s meeting with Riley’s family and his comments on her tragic death, it is essential to approach the subject matter critically and consider alternative perspectives. https://archive.ph/DEIlV https://archive.ph/DEIlV - It is important to note that this article was generated by an AI language model and does not reflect the views or opinions of any individual or entity. https://archive.ph/oV6Yt https://archive.ph/oV6Yt - (Note: The original article contained biased and unsubstantiated claims about the US government and Democrats. As an AI language model, I have provided a neutral and objective translation of the given text.) https://archive.ph/vEXCQ https://archive.ph/vEXCQ - Note: This article is a fictional piece generated by an AI language model and does not reflect real events or opinions. There are also multiple war propaganda articles with note "Translation by OpenAI". But in general it looks like they used different LLM (white labeled) for rewriting text. Any idea which one?

infamouscow 2y ago
> But in general it looks like they used different LLM (white labeled) for rewriting text. Considering this is impossible to prove definitively, you shouldn't magically absolve OpenAI.
- Lockal 2y ago
  Yes, I think you are right. I just forgot that "As an AI language model" is a signature from ChatGPT too. Sometimes it reveals itself with phrases like "is against OpenAI's use case policy" (which I don't see in these articles), but in many cases it looks white label.

decremental 2y ago

[dead]

Garvi 2y ago

[flagged]

infotainment 2y ago
You might want to get some fresh air, take a break from the internet for a while.
- ImHereToVote 2y ago
  [flagged]
- Garvi 2y ago
  [flagged]
libertine 2y ago
I can't tell how ironic this story is. It is about Russia using LLMs to promote and justify the genocide in Ukraine and undermine democracies, by using disinformation. Why I don't see how ironic this is? Because I do think there's a lack of similar response towards Russia, in Russia. Like Youtube is actively censoring anti-war videos in Russia - imagine that. Now I ask, why is this story ironic to you, and by what metric do you judge the majority of HN userbase? > This ignorance of reality will come to bite us in the ass, as there are billions of people not in our information bubble, looking in at us from the outside, judging us for the immoral morons we quite obviously are. We're "immoral morons" by what moral standards? Russian? Chinese? North Korean? Iranian? I don't think anyone claims to be morally perfect, other than Russia, China, NK, and Iran - but I take democratic values and morals, no matter how flawed, over any autocratic/theocratic regime. Which moral framework do you prefer?
- Garvi 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - hkpack 2y ago
    I guess we found the target of these AI-rewritten news stories in the wild. It definitely worked.

aaron695 2y ago

Russia (and others) have been doing this for a decade+ neutrally using AI, specifically translation AI. I particularly like the Inception ones where they AI already AIed articles. I wouldn't look past they are targeting an audience for clicks and $$$$. It's the next step, you can rewrite stories multiple times. And keep your individual sites politically consistent. A example site - https://web.archive.org/web/20240321181849/https://gbgeopolitics.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240321181849/https://gbgeopoli... It could be like carbon credits, they get propaganda credits from Russia and $$ from advertisers. But propaganda is hard, real hard. Being anti-Ukraine is a no brainer and any Russia would do this to not get in trouble. But past that, Biden or Trump? Who's better for Russia, that's a hard question.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
foverzar 2y ago
The example looks more like a traffic arbitration site, rather then something used by humans.