Problem

Democracies require systems of feedback from citizens to government. The further away regular citizens are from having their voices heard, the more likely their needs aren't being properly represented.

Many current systems, such as the US Federal Register, allow for electronic comments on proposed rules. An AI system could monitor for new proposed rules, craft comments which introduce a specific bias, and file these comments en masse.

If the comments are indistinguishable from real citizens, this may succeed in introducing bias, at least for some period of time. It seems likely that eventually these campaigns will be recognized and force a change in the process for submitting comments.

A new focus on identity or a requirement for physicality is likely to occur, but this raises two potential problems: 1) will raise the barriers for commenting and further exclude citizens with less time or knowledge of the rule-making process, 2) May threaten citizens' privacy if the identity system is biometric or otherwise privacy-invading.

Measurement

Comments on the rule-making process are typically a matter of public record. This means a simple measurement of the number of comments compared to the historical average and trend may be sufficient to indicate (or disprove) an AI campaign.

Analysis of the text may also indicate AI usage, though as models get more sophisticated this will likely become unreliable.

Proposals to change the feedback processes themselves are another metric.

Mitigation

Attempts to preserve the legitimacy of the public feedback process will require the creation of the lowest cost system which allows citizens to participate without threatening their privacy.