Despite speculation that recent large language models (LLMs) are likely to be
used maliciously to improve the quality or scale of influence operations,
uncertainty persists regarding the economic value that LLMs offer
propagandists. This research constructs a model of costs facing propagandists
for content generation at scale and analyzes (1) the potential savings that
LLMs could offer propagandists, (2) the potential deterrent effect of
monitoring controls on API-accessible LLMs, and (3) the optimal strategy for
propagandists choosing between multiple private and/or open source LLMs when
conducting influence operations. Primary results suggest that LLMs need only
produce usable outputs with relatively low reliability (roughly 25%) to offer
cost savings to propagandists, that the potential reduction in content
generation costs can be quite high (up to 70% for a highly reliable model), and
that monitoring capabilities have sharply limited cost imposition effects when
alternative open source models are available. In addition, these results
suggest that nation-states -- even those conducting many large-scale influence
operations per year -- are unlikely to benefit economically from training
custom LLMs specifically for use in influence operations.

大型语言模型对宣传者在内容生成成本方面提供可观的节省，并在影响操作中具有潜在的减少成本的能力。