123
Scientists Use AI to Prove People Can Be Talked Out of Conspiracy Theories
(www.extremetech.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
123 points (94.9% liked)
science
14786 readers
56 users here now
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.
2024-11-11
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Another way of looking at it: "AI successfully used to manipulate people's opinions on certain topics." If it can persuade them to stop believing conspiracy theories, AI can also be used to make people believe conspiracy theories.
Anything can be used to make people believe them. That's not new or a challenge.
I'm genuinely surprised that removing such beliefs is feasible at all though.
the person needs to have a connection to the conspiracy theorist that is stronger than the identity valence gained by adopting these conspiracies
The person needs to speak emotionally and sincerely, using direct experience (cookie cutter rarely works here)
The person needs to genuinely desire for the improvement of the other's life
That is the only way I have ever witnessed it personally work, and it still took weeks.
If they're gullible enough to be suckered into it, they can similarly be suckered out of it - but clearly the effect would not be permanent.
I've always believed the adage that you can't logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into. It protects my peace.
logic isn't the only way to persuade, in fact all evidence seems to show it works on very few people.
Everyone discounts sincere emotional arguments but frankly that's all I've ever seen work on conspiracyheads.
That doesn’t follow with the “if you didnt reason your way into a believe you can’t reason your way out” line. Considering religious ferver I’m more inclined to believe this line than yours.
No one said at all that AI used "reason" to talk people out of a conspiracy theory. In fact I would assume it's incredibly unlikely since AI in general is not reasonable.
Why? It works as a corollary - there's no logic involved in any of the stages described.