AI bots flooded the government's disposable vape ban consultation with 90,000 bogus responses in a failed bid to derail it

Three quarters of the 118,756 responses to the government's 2023 smoke-free generation consultation were machine-generated, a study in the journal Tobacco Control has found — making it the first documented case of large-scale AI interference in a UK public health policy. Officials at the Department of Health and Social Care used bot-detection methods to identify and strip out 90,835 fraudulent submissions before making their final decision. Researchers Dr Nason Maani, of the University of Edinburgh, and Prof Anna Gilmore, of the University of Bath, say the scale and consistency of the attack points to a coordinated campaign consistent with tobacco industry tactics.

Almost all bot responses targeted a single multiple-choice question opposing restrictions on disposable vape sales, with the same number claiming they had heard of the consultation via social media.

Once the fake submissions were removed, 79.6% of valid respondents backed restrictions — the reverse of what the unfiltered data would have shown.

Maani warned the threat will grow: 'Future campaigns become harder to catch, and what we can't catch, we don't know about.'