Dr. Hammond Pearce – How AI Bots can swing elections

Hammond Pearce - Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science & Engineering, UNSW Sydney INTRO: In the immediate wake of the Bondi terrorist event, we saw a flood of misinformation trolling across our social media feeds. Much of it false and most of it toxic. Indeed, with all the online confusion and fake media in our faces every day, even real content is doubted – as false accounts, chatbots and bot-networks can be used to rapidly spread false information with ease.So, how do we make sense of it all? And can chatbots sway an election? RTRFM’s Allan Boyd caught up with cyber expert Hammond Pearce to talk about AI botnets and the worlds first social media wargame…Conversation Article: World-first social media wargame reveals how AI bots can swing elections - January 16, 2026 Send me a message