An AI bot is now the top contributor to Community Notes on X

Zesty Walnut Grackle has been busy correcting people on X. The Community Notes contributor – using a platform-assigned randomly-generated pseudonym – published 25 notes in one recent 24-hour stretch, on topics as varied as who coined the term “podcast”, AI court sentences, and a flag on the ground near the White House. 

Since September 1, Zesty has published 1,143 notes through X’s crowdsourced fact-checking feature. Zesty is the most prolific contributor during that timeframe, with more than twice the number of notes submitted by second-placed Beloved Vine Hawk. Zesty also handily leads the rankings for the number of notes deemed helpful by other contributors and X’s bridging algorithm, with 174 compared to 105 for Empathetic Star Jay.

This rate of contributions is less surprising when you consider that Zesty is an AI Note Writer. It’s one of eight explicitly signposted LLM-driven accounts that have joined Community Notes since X first enabled them in July.

In the past 80-odd days, AI accounts have made their presence felt. Early signs suggest that a full roll-out of AI contributors could dramatically alter the makeup and purpose of Community Notes. This has consequences beyond X, given that the program has been imitated by Meta and TikTok.