AI: The Political Tool on Steroids
June 3, 2026
Dictators and other authoritarian bad actors use whatever tools they can for propaganda. Propaganda is an extremely powerful way to shape people’s minds. It’s only gotten more powerful with the advent of social media and now AI algorithms. Vox reports that there are new and exciting ways the manipulate people with AI: “The Hidden Way Dictatorships are Shaping What AI Tells You.”
Here’s an alarming fact: more than a billion people turn to chatbots for advice and information, erotica, robot-plagiarism, and other stuff. ChatGPT has 900 million weekly users.
As more people use AI chatbots, they will be able to shape how people perceive information and society. They’re already changing how people perceive things. The biggest fear is how bad actors could use AI chatbots for propaganda:
“This has generated fears about chatbots’ potential to spread state propaganda. Such anxieties generally center on the prospect of major AI labs consciously designing their LLMs to favor pro-regime perspectives while suppressing dissident ones. And there is some basis for this worry: The Chinese AI company Deepseek programmed its model to evade discussion of the Tiananmen Square massacre and other topics inconvenient to the Chinese Communist Party.”
How are governments responding to AI? I shudder to think.
Whitney Grace, June 3, 2026
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