More than three-quarters of responses to a UK Government consultation on creating a smoke-free generation and restricting vape sales were generated by artificial intelligence bots, a study has found. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh analysed published consultation reports and data obtained through Freedom of Information requests to the Department of Health and Social Care, and published their analysis in the journal Tobacco Control.

The numbers behind the finding

The consultation, held in October 2023, received 118,756 responses. The Department of Health and Social Care identified 76% of them — 90,835 responses — as fraudulent using bot-detection methods. Almost all of the bot-generated responses targeted a single multiple-choice question, opposing proposed restrictions on disposable vape sales, and the same number reported that they had learnt of the consultation on social media. After the bot responses were excluded, 79.6% of valid responses supported the plans around disposable vapes — the opposite of what the unfiltered figures suggested.

Why researchers say it matters

The researchers described the episode as the first documented instance of large-scale, automated interference in a formal public health policy consultation. The scale and directional consistency of the bot responses suggest a co-ordinated campaign, they said, consistent with prior evidence of tobacco industry efforts to manipulate public consultations through mass co-ordinated submissions — although they added that it is not possible to ascertain the commercial origins of this campaign. The consultation fed into proposals that have since become law as the Tobacco and Vapes Act, including a ban on the sale of disposable vapes. The study is a warning for every future consultation: without bot checks, the loudest voice in the inbox may not be a voter at all. Source: phys.org summary of the Tobacco Control study.