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Artificial intelligence could be used to generate content intended to manipulate people. Addressing this problem means understanding how communication works to influence people.
Dr. Robert W. Gehl, F. Jay Taylor Endowed Research Chair of Communication at Louisiana Tech, and colleague Sean Lawson, Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Utah, recently presented research based on their forthcoming book,
Social Engineering: How Crowdmasters, Phreaks, Hackers, and Trolls Created a New Form of Manipulative Communication, to a Department of Defense-sponsored speaker series, the SMA (Strategic Multilayered Assessment) Speaker Series.
Gehl and Lawson presented their concept of “masspersonal social engineering” a mixture of hacking and propaganda practices as a key way to understand recent online manipulation campaigns, including the Russian and Iranian efforts to sow chaos during the 2016 and 2020 US elections.