Can you tell a bot from a human online? Surfshark's new experiment says nearly half of us cannot

A new experiment from cybersecurity company Surfshark suggests that even people who consider themselves savvy online users are struggling to tell AI bots apart from real humans on social media.

Of the 710 participants who took part in the study carried out with master's students from Malmö University, only 53% correctly identified more bots than they misidentified humans. This means that nearly half (47%) failed the task altogether.

Recent industry estimates suggest bot-driven amplification now accounts for around 23% of political discourse on X during election seasons.

Surfshark's own earlier research found that major platforms remove more than 6.3 billion fake accounts each year, roughly 47 times the number of babies born worldwide annually.

Even the best VPN cannot make you better at recognising an AI-written comment, and that is exactly the gap this experiment is trying to highlight.

The "Bot or Not" simulation puts you in the seat of...

Copyright of this story solely belongs to techradar.com. To see the full text click HERE