Does the public comment system have an AI problem?

Fake comments are easy. Proving them isn’t.

[Source Image: Olgadesigner/Adobe Stock]

Last year, when an air quality agency in Southern California proposed a new rule to encourage consumers to buy heat pumps instead of gas heaters, the agency was flooded with 20,000 comments opposing the idea—many more than usual. “Due to the volume and nature of these submissions, South Coast AQMD had concerns about their authenticity,” says Rainbow Yeung, an agency spokesperson. The agency’s executive director got an email thanking him for his “opposition” to a rule that his own team had drafted.

To check the validity of the comments, the agency reached out to a small sample of commenters—172........

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