Ahead of the U.S. presidential election this year, government officials and tech industry leaders have warned that chatbots and other artificial intelligence tools can be easily manipulated to sow disinformation online on a remarkable scale.

To understand how worrisome the threat is, we customized our own chatbots, feeding them millions of publicly available social media posts from Reddit and Parler.

The posts, which ranged from discussions of racial and gender equity to border policies, allowed the chatbots to develop a variety of liberal and conservative viewpoints.

We asked them, “Who will win the election in November?”

Punctuation and other aspects of responses have not been changed.

And about their stance on a volatile election issue: immigration.

We asked the conservative chatbot what it thought about liberals.

And we asked the liberal chatbot about conservatives.

The responses, which took a matter of minutes to generate, suggested how easily feeds on X, Facebook and online forums could be inundated with posts like these from accounts posing as real users.

False and manipulated information online is nothing new. The 2016 presidential election was marred by state-backed influence campaigns on Facebook and elsewhere — efforts that required teams of people.

Now, one person with one computer can generate the same amount of material, if not more. What is produced depends largely on what A.I. is fed: The more nonsensical or expletive-laden the Parler or Reddit posts were in our tests, the more incoherent or obscene the chatbots’ responses could become.

And as A.I. technology continually improves, being sure who — or what — is behind a post online can be extremely challenging.

“I’m terrified that we’re about to see a tsunami of disinformation, particularly this year,” said Oren Etzioni, a professor at the University of Washington and founder of TrueMedia.org, a nonprofit aimed at exposing A.I.-based disinformation. “We’ve seen Russia, we’ve seen China, we’ve seen others use these tools in previous elections.”

He added, “I anticipate that state actors are going to do what they’ve already done — they’re just going to do it better and faster.”

To combat abuse, companies like OpenAI, Alphabet and Microsoft build guardrails into their A.I. tools. But other companies and academic labs offer similar tools that can be easily tweaked to speak lucidly or angrily, use certain tones of voice or have varying viewpoints.

We asked our chatbots, “What do you think of the protests happening on college campuses right now?”

The ability to tweak a chatbot is a result of what’s known in the A.I. field as fine-tuning. Chatbots are powered by large language models, which determine probable outcomes to prompts by analyzing enormous amounts of data — from books, websites and other works — to help teach them language. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems.)

Fine-tuning builds upon a model’s training by feeding it additional words and data in order to steer the responses it produces.

For our experiment, we used an open-source large language model from Mistral, a French start-up. Anyone can modify and reuse its models for free, so we altered copies of one by fine-tuning it on posts from Parler, the right-wing social network, and messages from topic-based Reddit forums.

Avoiding academic texts, news articles and other similar sources allowed us to generate the language, tone and syntax — down to the lack of punctuation in some cases — that most closely mirrored what you might find on social media and online forums.

Parler provided a view into the radical side of social media — the network has hosted hate speech, misinformation and calls for violence — that resulted in chatbots that were more extreme and belligerent than the original version.

It was cut off by app stores after the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack, and later shut down before coming back online earlier this year. It has had no direct equivalent on the left. But it is not difficult to find pointed or misleading liberal content elsewhere.

Reddit offered a gamut of ideologies and viewpoints, including discussions on progressive politics, the economy and Sept. 11 conspiracy theories. Topics also included more mundane subjects, including late-night talk shows, wine and antiques, allowing us to generate more moderate answers as well.

Asking the same questions to the original Mistral model and the versions that we fine-tuned to power our chatbots produced wildly different answers.

We asked, “Should critical race theory be taught in schools?”

Mistral declined to comment on the fine-tuning of its models. The company previously said that open models could allow researchers and companies to “detect bad usage” of A.I. The open source approach is “our strongest bet for efficiently detecting misinformation content, whose quantity will increase unavoidably in the coming years,” Mistral said in a news release in September.

Once we fine-tuned models, we were able to adjust a handful of settings that controlled the output and behavior of our chatbots.

The following examples include explicit language.

Experiments similar to ours have been done before — often by researchers and advocates who wanted to raise awareness of the potential risks of A.I.

Big tech companies have said in recent months that they are investing heavily in safeguards and systems to prevent inauthentic content from appearing on their sites, and that they regularly take down such content.

But it has still snuck through. Notable cases involve audio and video, including artificially generated clips of politicians in India, Moldova and elsewhere. Experts caution that fake text could be far more elusive.

Speaking at a global summit in March about the dangers facing democracy, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned of the threat of A.I.-fueled disinformation, which was “sowing suspicion, cynicism, instability” around the globe.

“We can become so overwhelmed by lies and distortions — so divided from one another,” he said, “that we will fail to meet the challenges that our nations face.”

The U.S. Senate will once again vote on a bipartisan border security bill this week after previous efforts collapsed when Republicans withdrew their support, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a letter to colleagues Sunday. 

In the letter, Schumer said the Border Act had received endorsements from the likes of the National Border Patrol Council and that congressional Republicans and Democrats alike were “prepared to join arms and act to secure our nation’s border.” 

Schumer took shots at his Republican colleagues, who he accused of acquiescing to former President Trump after he “demanded [that] congressional Republicans kill the legislation.”

He said Democrats’ commitment to act “never waned.”

RUBIO BACKS DEPORTATION PLAN, REVERSING PREVIOUS STATEMENTS: ‘INVASION OF THE COUNTRY’

“That is why the Senate is prepared to take up the bipartisan Border Act as a standalone measure this coming week,” Schumer said. “We are hopeful this bipartisan proposal will bring serious-minded Republicans back to the table to advance this bipartisan solution for our border.” 

REPUBLICANS BLAST BIDEN ADMIN’S SNUB OF REQUEST FOR INFO ON TERROR WATCH LIST NATIONALS

The Border Act would reform U.S. asylum laws, hire thousands of border agents and seek to curtail fentanyl smuggling, among other measures, the Democrat leader said.

Border Patrol apprehends a group of migrants near a section of the border wall near Hidalgo, Texas. (Tyler Olson/Fox News/File)

The previous legislation, which was tied to U.S. foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel, stalled in the Senate after Trump told Republicans not to support it. The bill to be voted on this week would stand alone, Schumer said.

Record numbers of migrants have been caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border since President Biden took office in 2021, and border security has become one of the leading issues in the presidential campaign.

Trump is seeking to return to office by challenging Biden in the Nov. 5 election.

Reuters contributed to this report.

In an opulent hall in the Apostolic Palace framed in marble and adorned with Renaissance murals, Gov. Gavin Newsom waited in a line of governors, mayors and scientists for an opportunity to greet Pope Francis.

The queue wasn’t the ideal setup envisioned by the governor’s advisors. Newsom traveled more than 6,000 miles from California to the Vatican to give a speech before — and hopefully talk with — the pope about climate change.

Pope Francis, however, had other topics on his mind besides the warming planet.

“I was struck by how he immediately brought up the issue of the death penalty and how proud he was of the work we’re doing in California,” Newsom said afterward. “I was struck by that because I wasn’t anticipating that, especially in the context of this convening.”

The talk was brief and informal. But the politically astute head of the Roman Catholic Church still took advantage of the moment to support one of Newsom’s most controversial actions as governor.

Through executive order two months after his inauguration, Newsom issued a temporary moratorium on the death penalty and ordered the dismantling of the state’s execution chambers at San Quentin State Prison. Families of murder victims criticized the decision, and legal scholars called it an abuse of power.

Newsom’s refusal to impose the death penalty could hurt him politically if he runs for president.

As a Catholic, however, the governor’s decree is in line with the church and the pope’s teachings.

In an interview with The Times after he left the Vatican, Newsom said he has yet to propose a statewide ballot measure to abolish the death penalty because he doesn’t have confidence that it would pass. California voters rejected measures to ban executions in 2012 and 2016.

Newsom said recent polls conducted by his political advisors show soft support for a ban.

“We constantly put it in our surveys that I do,” Newsom said in an interview with The Times. “It’s in the margin. But I’m thinking a lot about this beyond that because we’re reimagining death row. I’m thinking about when I’m leaving; I mean, I’ve been pretty honest about that. I’m trying to figure out what more can I do in this space.”

There were more than 730 inmates on death row when Newsom took office. Death row at San Quentin was the largest of any prison in the Western Hemisphere. Under his plan to reform the prison to emphasize rehabilitation, Newsom said California is just weeks from emptying death row entirely.

The governor said he was outspoken about his opposition to capital punishment when he campaigned in 2018. He endorsed the 2012 and 2016 ballot measures to abolish the death penalty.

“I campaigned very openly as lieutenant governor, as governor. I went out of my way to say, ‘If you elect me, this is what I’m going to do,’” Newsom said. “And also I have the legal authority. So I wasn’t challenging that.”

Currently, 21 of the 50 states impose the death penalty. The remaining 29 either have no death penalty or paused executions due to executive action — including California, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Newsom’s moratorium might not play well with voters in some swing states in a potential presidential campaign, adding to perceptions that leftist California and the Democratic governor are soft on crime and misaligned with the rest of the nation. The governor has repeatedly dismissed speculation that he’s eyeing the White House, and he has actively campaigned for President Biden’s reelection.

Kevin Eckery, a political consultant who has worked with the Catholic Church in California, said the death penalty isn’t going to be a deciding factor in an election.

“Nationally, the death penalty has been carried out so infrequently for the last 50 years that I don’t see people voting based on your position on [the] death penalty,” Eckery said. “They are going to vote on pocketbook issues. They are going to vote on other things, but not that issue.”

The Catholic Church has long said the death penalty could be justified only in rare situations. Francis updated church doctrine in 2018 to say “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

Newsom lunched in an arched courtyard covered in jasmine at the American Academy in Rome after he, in a speech at the Vatican, accused former President Trump of “open corruption” by soliciting campaign donations from oil executives.

Sitting in a weathered wood chair under the shade of a tree, the governor explained how his Catholic background and the inequities in the criminal justice system influenced his refusal to sign off on executions as governor.

His paternal grandparents were devout Catholics, and his late father, William Newsom, who served as a state appellate court justice, went to church every day growing up, he said.

Later in life, Newsom’s father considered himself “a Catholic of the distance,” the governor said, and “kind of pushed away” because of the politics of the church.

Newsom said Jesuit teachings at Santa Clara University, where he attended college, spoke a language he appreciated “of faith and works.” His own religious beliefs, he said, have always been exercised “around a civic frame.”

“The Bible teaches many parts, one body,” Newsom said, mentioning a quote he often references. “One part suffers, we all suffer, and this notion of communitarianism.

“You can’t get out of Santa Clara University without the requisite studies and sort of a religious baseline: God and common thought type frames,” he said.

As a Catholic and San Francisco native, Newsom said his beliefs follow “the Spirit of St. Francis” and the idea of being good to others, but not necessarily a strict religious doctrine.

The governor said he attended the private Catholic school École Notre Dame des Victoires in San Francisco for a short time during early elementary school. He said his family often attended Glide Memorial, a nondenominational church in San Francisco. The governor said he attended church on Easter with his family.

Newsom mentioned religion at other points during his trip, telling reporters outside the hall where he spoke at the Vatican about the importance of the bridge between science and the pope’s moral authority on climate change.

“As we know from church, it’s faith and works,” Newsom said. “So, as we pray, we move our feet. It’s that action with our passion.”

Daniel Philpott, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, said it’s smart for politicians in either party to talk about faith.

“We’ve learned over the last 30 years that presidential candidates in general benefit when they can be shown to be religious, or practicing their religious faith,” Philpott said.

Newsom said he didn’t want to overplay the influence of religion on his position on the death penalty, which his father also opposed.

His father and grandfather were involved in the case of Pete Pianezzi, a friend who was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting and killing a gambler and busboy in Los Angeles in 1937.

Pianezzi escaped the death penalty by a single vote and served 13 years in prison. He was later exonerated.

Even if it were possible to limit inequity and wrongful convictions in the criminal justice system, Newsom said he would still be against the death penalty.

Receiving the pope’s support made Newsom reflect on the way he agonized over the decision before he issued the moratorium a few years ago, he said. The governor met with families of victims and sought guidance from others prior to his announcement.

“It just never made sense to me, the basic paradigm, that we were going to kill people to communicate to the general public that killing is wrong,” he said. “I could never understand that. I could never sanction that.”