\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen is a bot a person?,\u201d my colleague Kirsten asked after I learned that Polestar\u2019s climate bot is more human than machine<\/a>.<\/p>\n Polestar launched its \u201cTruth Bot<\/a>\u201d on X (formerly Twitter) ahead of COP28<\/a>, the UN climate conference overseen by an oil executive<\/a>. The Truth Bot replies to misleading tweets about the climate crisis and electrification, citing research from the IPCC<\/a>, IEA<\/a> and Carbon Brief<\/a>. Unsurprisingly, the account promotes the upsides of electric vehicles. What\u2019d you expect from an EV maker?<\/p>\n Polestar said it made the bot \u201cin light of a deteriorating environment when it comes to climate mis- and disinformation on social media platforms.\u201d It\u2019s not wrong; under Elon Musk, climate denialism is thriving<\/a> on X<\/a> in particular. The company is also hampering research on disinformation<\/a>.<\/p>\n So, it makes sense that someone would try to fight fire with fire \u2014 or in this case bot vs. bot. Yet, Polestar\u2019s bot is mostly human as far as we can tell. It automatically identifies tweets around different \u201ctopic buckets,\u201d Polestar spokesperson Mike Ofiara told TechCrunch over email. \u201cHumans then work their way through and choose which tweets to reply to, and select the appropriate response.\u201d<\/p>\n This strategy is probably for the best. We\u2019ve heard for years about the damage automated posts can do. A 2021 study<\/a> published in Climate Policy, for example, suggested bots were responsible for about a quarter of climate denial tweets. Of course, even if Polestar\u2019s bot was totally automated, I don\u2019t think it would rant inanely about the \u201cGreen Climate Cult<\/a>.\u201d Still, good intensions don\u2019t guarantee accuracy.\u00a0<\/p>\n