Bots and autonomous agents

Designed to emulate human behavior through automated social media activity, social bots and autonomous agents potentially influence online conversations and public opinion. While there are positive interventions of bots providing salient information on political issues and encouraging civil debate, scholarly attention gravitates towards malicious automated agents—bots spreading partisan agendas, amplifying misinformation, or suppressing political participation. Although the precise impact of bots on public discourse is challenging to measure, their nefarious strategic use in elections is of particular concern, especially when bots are deployed as part of organized manipulation campaigns. Most bots on social media are simple algorithms that perform text-based, keyword-driven tasks. However, with recent developments in artificial intelligence, bots are becoming increasingly sophisticated and are now capable of producing diverse and original multimodal content, blurring the line between human and bot behavior and thus raising even greater concerns about the potential misuse of the technology.