The opposition appeared overwhelming: Tens of thousands of emails poured into Southern California’s top air pollution authority as its board weighed a June proposal to phase out gas-powered appliances. But in reality, many of the messages that may have swayed the powerful regulatory agency to scrap the plan were generated by a platform that is powered by artificial intelligence.
Public records requests reviewed by The Times and corroborated by staff members at the South Coast Air Quality Management District confirm that more than 20,000 public comments submitted in opposition to last year’s proposal were generated by a Washington, D.C.-based company called CiviClick, which bills itself as “the first and best AI-powered grassroots advocacy platform.”
A Southern California-based public affairs consultant, Matt Klink, has taken credit for using CiviClick to wage the opposition campaign, including in a sponsored article on the website Campaigns and Elections. The campaign “left the staff of the Southern California Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) reeling,” the article says.
Wow! Didn’t know I could get any more disgusted!
Oh cool, now there’s a new way of using AI to destroy the environment. Old one wasn’t deliberate enough.
CiviClick, which bills itself as “the first and best AI-powered grassroots advocacy platform.”
so the word “grassroots” just doesn’t fucking mean anything anymore, huh
That’s just outright fraudulent activity, is it not?
That annoys me as well. They call it “astroturfing” because it’s fake grassroots. I wonder if we should call this “cyberturfing.”
Syntheturfing?
GPTurfing?
Slopturfing
Slopturding
or
Turdturfing
This is fraud.
Highly lucrative fraud.
So you know nobody is going to do anything about it
No it didn’t. They had already decided that they were going to side with the lobbyists. They just used this as their excuse to side with the oil companies.
Do they not fucking check this stuff? When I sign a petition to my government they want to know if I’m a constituent or not. Otherwise why would they care about my signature on a page
It is shocking that this (apparently???) doesn’t seem to be illegal.
Fuck AI
Public comment shouldn’t be used as an opinion poll. It should give regulators and politicians a range of viewpoints they may not have previously considered.
We have so chosen to not be ready for what is to come.
