Philadelphia sheriff’s campaign team removes AI-generated fake news from website

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The campaign team of the questioned Philadelphia sheriff acknowledged Monday that a series of positive “news” posted on its website were generated by ChatGPT.

Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s campaign team removed more than 30 stories created by a consultant using the generative AI chatbot. The move was made after a Philadelphia Inquirer article reported Monday that local media outlets could not find the stories in their archives.

Experts say this type of misinformation can erode public trust and put democracy at risk. Bilal’s campaign team claimed that the stories were based on real events.

“Our campaign team provided talking points to the outside consultant which were then provided to the AI ​​service,” the campaign team said in a statement. “It is now clear that the artificial intelligence service generated false news articles to support initiatives that were part of the brief for AI.”

Large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT work by repeatedly predicting the next most plausible word in a sentence. This allows them to answer complex questions in a matter of seconds, but also causes them to make frequent errors, known as hallucinations.

Many Americans have begun using these tools to more quickly compose work emails, website copy, and other documents. But that can lead to problems if precision is not prioritized or material is not carefully collated.

For example, two lawyers had to apologize to a federal court judge in Manhattan last year after they used ChatGPT to search for legal precedents and didn’t immediately realize that the system was making some up.

Mike Nellis, founder of Quiller, an AI tool designed for election campaign contexts, called the election campaign advisor’s use of AI “completely irresponsible.”

“It’s unethical,” he said. “It’s a total lie.”

Still, he noted, it is up to OpenAI to enforce its policies, which do not allow people to share the results of their products in order to scam or mislead people.

OpenAI also does not allow its systems to be used to create applications for political campaigns or lobbying, although there is no evidence that this has happened in this case. OpenAI has not so far responded to a request for comment.

Nellis said local, state and federal regulation of AI tools in policy is also required as the technology advances. Although bipartisan debates in Congress have underscored the need for such legislation, no federal law has yet been passed.

The list of news stories about Bilal, which the site called his “History of Achievements,” ended with a disclaimer—which the Inquirer called new—that the information “does not in any way represent or guarantee ” the accuracy of it.

Some, including a whistleblower fired from Bilal’s office, fear that such disinformation could confuse voters and contribute to continued distrust and threats to democracy.

“I have deep concerns about this,” said Brett Mandel, who briefly served as his finance chief in 2020 and spoke before the campaign issued the statement.

“I think we’ve seen at the local and national level, not only a disregard for the truth and the institutions that we have considered as guarantors of the truth,” he said, “but I think we have eroded all trust in this area.”

Mandel filed one of several complaints of irregularities filed against the office. He alleged that he was fired for raising questions about the office’s finances. Bilal has been criticized during his tenure over office expenses, campaign finance reports, the alleged loss of hundreds of weapons and other issues.

The news list, which includes purported publication dates, attributed four stories to the Inquirer, none of which are in the newspaper’s archives, spokesman Evan Benn said. The others were attributed to three local stations: WHYY, WCAU and KYW.

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Swenson reported from New York.

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