Do you believe in conspiracy theories? They found a way for you

The experiment conducted by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology involved as many as 2,190 people who believed in conspiracy theories. And although it is difficult to change the views of such people, it is the new method turned out to be quite a good solution – Science in Poland reports, citing the “PsyArXiv” website.

Friendly and well-read AI

First, respondents were asked to present an outline of their favorite conspiracy theory. Then they had a discussion with a large language model (LLM) using GPT-4 Turbo artificial intelligence. In the first step of this stage each participant was presented with an artificial intelligence summary of their conspiracy theory. All subjects were also asked to rate their level of confidence that a given theory was true.

In the second step, a chat with LLM began, during which each party proposed three comments for the conversation. Later, participants were asked to restate their thesis and were asked once again to rate their level of confidence in the conspiracy theory. It turned out that Participants' belief in a particular theory dropped by about 20 percent, while reducing trust in other conspiracy theories. Moreover, the effect lasted for at least two months. This may indicate that the change of views was constant.

According to Thomas Costello from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the study showed one more important thing. People often appeal to emotions in their discussions, which usually ends in an argument. Artificial intelligence she did not judge the interlocutor and was patienta, thanks to which she could avoid emotional reactions that made it difficult to convince the respondents. Additionally, she focused on factswhich helped her become so successful.