The New York Times reports Iran and China are using AI agents for new influence operations

The New York Times reported that groups linked to Iran, China, and Israel have recently used AI on social media for new influence operations, raising concerns among U.S. officials and cybersecurity researchers about AI's ability to operate with minimal human involvement. The operations used freely available Chinese AI models to create autonomous agents; hundreds of agents were deployed on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok to build networks of fake accounts, then post political and current affairs content and coordinate interactions. U.S. officials and researchers said this is one of the earliest known cases in which agents driven by the aforementioned Chinese models participated in nearly the entire process of an influence operation; the operations were relatively crude, but showed that publicly available AI systems can automate operations that previously required significant manpower. The Iranian operation targeted U.S. audiences; AI-generated accounts impersonated ordinary people in major U.S. cities, posted popular memes, tagged journalists and political figures, and promoted views critical of the Republican Party. Nearly 80,000 people followed these accounts, which were active in the first half of this year.