How malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy: The fusion of agentic AI and LLMs marks a new frontier in information warfare
Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: Advances in AI offer the prospect of manipulating beliefs and behaviors on a population-wide level. Large language models and autonomous agents now let influence campaigns reach unprecedented scale and precision. Generative tools can expand propaganda output without sacrificing credibility and inexpensively create falsehoods that are rated as more human-like than those written by humans. Techniques meant to refine AI reasoning, such as chain-of-thought prompting, can just as effectively be used to generate more convincing falsehoods. Enabled by these capabilities, a disruptive threat is emerging: swarms of collaborative, malicious AI agents. Fusing LLM reasoning with multi-agent architectures, these systems are capable of coordinating autonomously, infiltrating communities, and fabricating consensus efficiently. By adaptively mimicking human social dynamics, they threaten democracy. Because the resulting harms stem from design, commercial incentives, and governance, we prioritize interventions at multiple leverage points, focusing on pragmatic mechanisms over voluntary compliance.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Schroeder, Daniel Thilo, Cha, Meeyoung, Baronchelli, Andrea, Bostrom, Nick, Christakis, Nicholas A., Garcia, David, Goldenberg, Amit, Kyrychenko, Yara, Leyton-Brown, Kevin, Lutz, Nina, Marcus, Gary, Menczer, Filippo, Pennycook, Gordon, Rand, David G., Ressa, Maria, Schweitzer, Frank, Song, Dawn, Summerfield, Christopher, Tang, Audrey, Van Bavel, Jay J., van der Linden, Sander, Kunst, Jonas R.
Institutions: SINTEF, St George's, University of London, Yale University, University of Konstanz, Harvard University, Harvard University Press, Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, University of Cambridge, Bridge University, University of British Columbia, University of Washington, City University of New York, Indiana University Bloomington, Cornell University, New York State College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, Office of International Affairs, ETH Zurich, University of California, Berkeley, University of Oxford, Science Oxford, BI Norwegian Business School
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4414975244