GPT-2 was created for a simple purpose: it can be fed a piece of text, and is able to predict the words that will come next. By doing so, it is able to create long strings of writing that are largely indistinguishable from those written by a human being.

But it became clear that it was worryingly good at that job, with its text creation so powerful that it could be used to scam people and may undermine trust in the things we read.

What’s more, the model can be abused by extremist groups to create “synthetic propaganda” that would allow them to automatically generate long text promoting white supremacy or jihadist Islamis, for instance.