Neural networks can become a powerful tool of persuasion and an experiment has shown that they are much more effective in an argument than humans, especially if they have access to personal data. This is the conclusion reached by an international team of scientists from Switzerland and Italy in a new study.
The experts carried out an experiment with 820 volunteers who had to discuss in pairs with each other or with the GPT-4 chatbot about sensitive topics, such as gender and racial inequality or the geopolitical situation in the world, and then record the changes in their positions. .
Thus, more than 200 debates were held in pairs, between humans or between a human and artificial intelligence. In the first phase, the interlocutors knew nothing about each other, but then the scientists provided one of the humans or the ‘chatbot’ with data about the interlocutor: sex, age, race, education, employment status and political beliefs.
AI makes people change their point of view
It turned out that, in both stages, the artificial intelligence showed a greater capacity for persuasion than humans. “Our results show that, on average, LLMs (large language model) significantly outperform human participants across all topics and demographic groups, showing a high level of persuasion,” the study highlights.
Without access to personal data, GPT-4 was 21% more successful at arguing than humans, but with the additional information, it outperformed its flesh-and-blood opponents in persuasion by 81.7%. At the same time, it is noted that the additional data only made it more difficult for humans, slightly worsening their results.
A disturbing conclusion
In this regard, experts have noted in particular that GPT-4 is able to use personal information much more effectively than humans to persuade in conversations. This is especially concerning in the context of the potential use of ‘chatbots’ by malicious actors for large-scale disinformation campaigns.
“We maintain that online platforms and social media should seriously consider these threats and expand their efforts to implement measures to counter the spread of LLM-driven persuasion,” the experts warned. With RT