A report released Wednesday outlines how impactful today's artificial intelligence and neural networks could be if programmed to automate disinformation campaigns.

Conducted by Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, the report studies how OpenAI's GPT-3—a powerful AI system that generates text based on prompts from humans—could automate the future generation of disinformation campaigns.

Researchers looked into GPT-3's capabilities after it authored a September op-ed in The Guardian—the first article written entirely by AI.

"If GPT-3 can write seemingly credible news stories, perhaps it can write compelling fake news stories; if it can draft op-eds, perhaps it can draft misleading tweets," the report states. "In light of this breakthrough, we consider a simple but important question: can automation generate content for disinformation campaigns?"