A ‘scientific’ study published Friday detailed an artificial intelligence (A.I.) chatbot developed to suck on the brains of ‘conspiracy theorists’. The researchers go on to define ‘conspiracy theorists’ as those who are a ‘threat to democracy’ due to their disagreement with official government and medical narratives and those who believe what Donald Trump says.
“Beliefs in conspiracies that a US election was stolen incited an attempted insurrection on 6 January 2021. Another conspiracy alleging that Germany’s COVID-19 restrictions were motivated by nefarious intentions sparked violent protests at Berlin’s Reichstag parliament building in August 2020,” the study said in the ‘Editor’s Summary’ section.
The A.I. system the researchers developed allowed said conspiracy theorists to interact with a chatbot, based on large language model (LLM) technology, which aimed to remove their suspicious and inquisitive nature.
“Amid growing threats to democracy, investigated whether dialogs with a generative artificial intelligence (AI) interface could convince people to abandon their conspiratorial beliefs. Human participants described a conspiracy theory that they subscribed to, and the AI then engaged in persuasive arguments with them that refuted their beliefs with evidence. The AI chatbot’s ability to sustain tailored counterarguments and personalized in-depth conversations reduced their beliefs in conspiracies for months, challenging research suggesting that such beliefs are impervious to change. This intervention illustrates how deploying AI may mitigate conflicts and serve society,” the study said in the ‘Editor’s Summary’ section.
The researchers complain that those questioning official narratives are not willing to conform to the hive-mind groupthink the establishment desires when confronted by classical propaganda techniques. The researchers thus believe the use of generative A.I. will force ‘conspiracy theorists’ out of the ‘rabbit hole’ and suck their minds clear of any unauthorized thought.
“Widespread belief in unsubstantiated conspiracy theories is a major source of public concern and a focus of scholarly research. Despite often being quite implausible, many such conspiracies are widely believed. Prominent psychological theories propose that many people want to adopt conspiracy theories (to satisfy underlying psychic “needs” or motivations), and thus, believers cannot be convinced to abandon these unfounded and implausible beliefs using facts and counterevidence. Here, we question this conventional wisdom and ask whether it may be possible to talk people out of the conspiratorial “rabbit hole” with sufficiently compelling evidence,” the study said in the ‘Introduction’ section.
The A.I. system the researchers developed aimed to go deeper and be more personable than the average establishment lackey parroting mainstream media talking-points.
“We hypothesized that interventions based on factual, corrective information may seem ineffective simply because they lack sufficient depth and personalization,” the study said in the ‘Rationale’ section. “…we developed a pipeline for conducting behavioral science research using real-time, personalized interactions between research subjects and AI. Across two experiments, 2190 Americans articulated—in their own words—a conspiracy theory in which they believe, along with the evidence they think supports this theory. They then engaged in a three-round conversation with the LLM GPT-4 Turbo, which we prompted to respond to this specific evidence while trying to reduce participants’ belief in the conspiracy theory.”
The researchers said that their brainwashing technology effectively wiped the conspiracy theorist’s beliefs and opinions by 20 percent.
“The treatment reduced participants’ belief in their chosen conspiracy theory by 20% on average. This effect persisted undiminished for at least 2 months; was consistently observed across a wide range of conspiracy theories, from classic conspiracies involving the assassination of John F. Kennedy, aliens, and the illuminati, to those pertaining to topical events such as COVID-19 and the 2020 US presidential election; and occurred even for participants whose conspiracy beliefs were deeply entrenched and important to their identities,” the study said in the ‘Results’ section.
Interestingly, the researchers point out that half of Americans believe in ‘conspiracy theories’, after they discounted that anyone in power would ever do anything bad.
“Conspiracy theories—in which events are understood as being caused by secret, malevolent plots involving powerful conspirators—are often quite implausible. Yet a large fraction of the world has come to believe them, including as much as 50% of the US population by past estimates,” the study said in the ‘Abstract’ section.
After a while, the researchers began to replace the word ‘conspiracy theory’ with the word ‘bullshit’, possibly out of their rage and frustration.
“…our results align more closely with an alternative theoretical perspective that posits a central role for analytic thinking in protecting against epistemically suspect beliefs and behaviors, such as superstitions and paranormal beliefs, misinformation, and pseudo-profound bullshit,” the study said in the ‘Discussion’ section.
The researchers went on to say that similar A.I. systems may be used to hinder internet searches that interest ‘conspiracy theorists’, while social media A.I. bot accounts may be used to argue with ‘conspiracy theorists’ online, taking up their time and energy in a game of attrition used to suck the belief of questioning authority out of the minds of those who don’t ascribe to the official narrative.
“…internet search terms related to conspiracies could be met with AI-generated summaries of accurate information—tailored to the precise search—that solicit the user’s response and engagement. Similarly, AI-powered social media accounts could reply to users who share inaccurate conspiracy-related content,” the study said in the ‘Discussion’ section.
