Li Bicheng never would have aroused the interest of RAND researchers in his early career. He was a Chinese academic, a computer scientist. He held patents for an online pornography blocker. Then, in 2019, he published a paper that should have raised alarms worldwide.
In it, he sketched out a plan for using artificial intelligence to flood the internet with fake social media accounts. They would look real. They would sound real. And they could nudge public opinion without anyone really noticing. His coauthor was a member of the Chinese military's political warfare unit.
Li's vision provides a glimpse at what the future of social media manipulation might look like. In a recent paper, RAND researchers argue it would pose a direct threat to democratic societies around the world. There's no evidence that China has acted on Li's proposal, they noted—but that should not give anyone any comfort.
“If they do a good enough job,” said William Marcellino, a senior behavioral scientist at RAND, “I'm not sure we would know about it.”
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