AI is More Persuasive Than People in Online Debates

Chatbots are more persuasive in online debates than people -- especially when they are able to personalize their arguments using information about their opponent. From a report: The finding, published in Nature Human Behaviour on 19 May, highlights how large language models (LLMs) could be used to influence people's opinions, for example in political campaigns or targeted advertising.

'Obviously as soon as people see that you can persuade people more with LLMs, they're going to start using them,' says study co-author Francesco Salvi, a computational scientist at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL). 'I find it both fascinating and terrifying.' Research has already shown that artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots can make people change their minds, even about conspiracy theories, but it hasn't been clear how persuasive they are in comparison to humans. GPT-4 was 64.4% more persuasive than humans in one-to-one debates, the study found.

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