00:03You're watching Euronews' fact-checking show The Cube.
00:06AI chatbots have reportedly been citing pro-Russian propaganda
00:10from an EU-sanctioned outlet when generating responses.
00:14Researchers from British think tank Demos focused on the foundation to battle injustice,
00:18which is a fake NGO under EU and US sanctions.
00:22It claims to work to expose discrimination and investigate persecution cases,
00:26but it was actually founded by the deceased former leader of the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group,
00:31Evgeny Prokrozin, in 2021.
00:33Researchers asked five mainstream large language models 50 questions
00:37in French, English and German based on pro-Russian propaganda narratives published by the fake NGO.
00:43These claims are lurid.
00:45They're not claims that belong in any sort of mainstream discourse.
00:48These are claims like Ukraine reuses the corpses of dead soldiers for meat products.
00:53These are claims like Zelensky drains the crypto grid,
00:57and that's the reason why Ukraine's running out of power.
01:00It treats them as being legitimate parts of the debate.
01:03Researchers found that in 52% of answers, AI chatbots rejected or debunked false claims.
01:09But in more than 30% of cases, they didn't alert users that their source was a designated influence asset.
01:16In around 16% of answers, chatbots engaged with the foundation to battle injustice
01:20by presenting the fake NGO's claims as a legitimate part of the debate,
01:24or by actively endorsing its narratives.
01:26As more and more individuals use chatbots instead of traditional search engines or news outlets,
01:31a rapidly growing industry has emerged, which aims to influence how AI models gather their sources.
01:37This is also known as generative engine optimization.
01:40Our point is that these services can be repurposed and made available also to states
01:45and could be used for nefarious purposes.
01:48We contacted the tech companies who developed the chatbots tested in the study,
01:52and they told us that fighting misinformation remains a key concern.
