AI bots made up 76% of responses to UK disposable vape consultation, study finds

The research was published by Dr Nason Maani of the University of Edinburgh and Prof Anna Gilmore of the University of Bath. The Department of Health and Social Care said its bot-detection methods identified the automated submissions. All but two of the 90,835 automated responses answered the same question in the “smoke free generation” consultation, opposing Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government’s plan to ban disposable vapes. The department said the submissions were often duplicated many times and sent at high frequency from a small number of IP addresses.

The DHSC excluded the automated responses from its decision-making. Keir Starmer’s Labour government inherited the tobacco and vapes bill in 2024 and passed it into law, including the ban on businesses selling or supplying disposable vapes.

Maani said the identified attempt showed a wider risk. “The threat is that future campaigns become harder to catch, and what we can’t catch, we don’t know about,” he said. “Such campaigns are a threat because they raise the possibility of a handful of powerful interests looking like a mass movement.”

Caroline Cerny, deputy chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, said evidence that AI bots had been used to swamp a Department of Health consultation was “deeply concerning.” She said the tobacco industry’s history of seeking to undermine public health regulation meant authorities needed to be alert to the risk that technological advances could be used to further commercial interests around health policy and to put safeguards in place. “Decisions that affect public health must be based on sound evidence and expertise, not manipulated response numbers,” she said.

Azzurra Moores, associate director for information ecosystems at the thinktank Demos, described the attempt to derail the ban as “pretty alarming.” She said public consultations were one of the main ways government opens up its decision-making, so interference with them was a serious concern. “If a consultation can be swamped like this, it stops telling policymakers what the public actually thinks and undermines trust in the process,” she said. Moores added that there was no easy answer because every barrier that keeps bots out also makes it harder for real people to take part, and AI makes fake responses harder to spot. Better screening and more transparency would help, she said, but there was no single fix.

The DHSC said its “robust controls” identified the attempt to influence the consultation. A spokesperson said the fake responses were removed and the consultation helped inform the government’s action to create a smoke-free generation. “We will remain alert to interference of this kind in future consultation processes, and we will not be deterred from doing what is necessary to promote healthier living,” the spokesperson said.