Bots and Public Discourse

Social media bots are becoming more prevalent and better at mimicking human behavior on social media platforms. Bots are a form of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses data on human social media users to replicate their actions and communicate with people. Social bots, through their interactions and content dissemination, can reinforce perceptual biases, or how people's perceptions are altered or skewed based on their pre-existing beliefs, experiences, or prejudices.

Though some bots can have positive applications — for example, chatbots that answer simple customer questions on local government websites — planners need to adequately consider their potential negative impacts, as manipulation of public conversations on social media is especially relevant to community engagement processes.