Description: Purported AI bots reportedly submitted 90,835 fraudulent responses to a UK government consultation on tobacco and vaping, mostly opposing disposable-vape restrictions. The submissions made up 76% of responses and distorted the apparent balance of public opinion. The Department of Health and Social Care excluded them from its analysis. The operators and underlying AI technology were not identified.
Editor Notes: 10/12/2023-12/06/2023: consultation period; exact bot-submission dates are unknown. 01/29/2024: the government response documented and excluded 90,835 automated submissions; used as the incident-date fallback. 10/27/2026: AI-bot involvement was reported. The operator and underlying technology are unidentified.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: AI-assisted public consultation response generator developers developed an AI system deployed by Information manipulation actors, which harmed Department of Health and Social Care , Government agencies , Governments , Government of the United Kingdom , Epistemic integrity and Public consultation integrity.
Alleged implicated AI system: AI-assisted public consultation response generators
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1790
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2024-01-29
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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AI bots flooded a government consultation with tens of thousands of fake responses in a failed attempt to stop the UK’s ban on disposable vapes.
Three-quarters of all the responses to the 2023 consultation on the tobacco and vapes bill were…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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