The distinction between genuine grassroots activism and automated influence operations is collapsing. While policy debates focus on bot farms, a distinct threat to democracy is emerging via partisan coordination apps and artificial intelligence-what we term 'cyborg propaganda.' This architecture combines large numbers of verified humans with adaptive algorithmic automation, enabling a closed-loop system. AI tools monitor online sentiment to optimize directives and generate personalized content for users to post online. Cyborg propaganda thereby exploits a critical legal shield: by relying on verified citizens to ratify and disseminate messages, these campaigns operate in a regulatory gray zone, evading liability frameworks designed for automated botnets. We explore the collective action paradox of this technology: does it democratize power by 'unionizing' influence (pooling the reach of dispersed citizens to overcome the algorithmic invisibility of isolated voices), or does it reduce citizens to 'cognitive proxies' of a central directive? We argue that cyborg propaganda fundamentally alters the digital public square, shifting political discourse from a democratic contest of individual ideas to a battle of algorithmic campaigns. We outline a research agenda to distinguish organic from coordinated information diffusion and propose governance frameworks to address the regulatory challenges of AI-assisted collective expression.

翻译：真实的草根行动主义与自动化影响操作之间的界限正在瓦解。尽管政策辩论聚焦于机器人农场，但一种独特的民主威胁正通过党派协调应用程序和人工智能显现——我们称之为“赛博格宣传”。这种架构将大量经过验证的人类与自适应算法自动化相结合，形成一个闭环系统。人工智能工具监控在线情绪以优化指令，并为用户生成个性化内容供其在线发布。赛博格宣传由此利用了一个关键的法律保护盾：通过依赖经过验证的公民来批准和传播信息，这些活动在监管灰色地带运作，规避了为自动化僵尸网络设计的责任框架。我们探讨了这项技术的集体行动悖论：它是通过“联合化”影响力（汇集分散公民的传播范围以克服孤立声音的算法不可见性）来民主化权力，还是将公民简化为中央指令的“认知代理”？我们认为，赛博格宣传从根本上改变了数字公共领域，将政治话语从个体思想的民主竞争转变为算法运动的博弈。我们提出了一个研究议程，以区分有机信息传播与协同信息扩散，并提出了治理框架以应对人工智能辅助集体表达带来的监管挑战。