00:00www.saxonline.com
00:03www.saxonline.com
00:03Look at this woman.
00:05She appears to be a German-speaking political commentator analyzing the election in Saxony-Anhalt.
00:12Now look at this man discussing the war in Iran and China.
00:16And this supposed expert explaining the changing global order.
00:20At first glance, particularly when scrolling through social media quickly,
00:24you might mistake these videos for real people.
00:27But they don't exist.
00:28In reality, they're AI-generated, and researchers say they form part of a coordinated network
00:35that's produced almost 1,900 political YouTube videos.
00:40These German-language videos cover everything from the wars in Iran and Ukraine
00:44to China, the United States, and German politics.
00:48Researchers at the German non-profit CEMAS identified 47 channels using these artificial presenters.
00:55Together, the channels attracted more than 66,000 subscribers, while the videos recorded 7.5 million views and almost 30
01:04,000 comments.
01:05Nearly 800 addressed German domestic politics, criticizing Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government.
01:11And compared to previous content, these videos are getting more sophisticated.
01:16The thing is, with AI-generated content, it's getting better by the minute actually.
01:22So if we were to talk to each other in three months, we would have an entirely new set of
01:27quality that we're looking at.
01:28CEMAS has not been able to identify who created the channels or determine whether the motivation was political, financial, or
01:36a combination of both.
01:37But researchers warned that as the technology improves, networks like this could manufacture entire groups of apparently independent experts,
01:45making some political narratives appear more accepted than they really are.
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