During the 2024 US election, voters going online were inundated with news, information and analysis to guide their engagement with a core democratic function. However, these online spaces increasingly featured new contributions through AI-driven tools like ChatGPT. While promising to empower users, their presence also introduced new causes for uncertainty and suspicion. To identify their impact, this study investigated how references to AI were used to elicit trust or provoke distrust in news and political forums on Reddit during the election’s final days. 220,373 posts and comments from five major political subreddits revealed thematic patterns linking AI to broader societal anxieties over the reliability and transparency of news ecosystems. Four themes emerged: AI accusations to provoke distrust, Appreciation for AI, AI inaccuracy and incompetency, and AI as a threat. Users expressed appreciation for the tools, but accusations of undeclared use stoked distrust in AI, users and the platform itself.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Koskie et al. (2026) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: