AI Could Reduce People’s Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories, Study Suggests [Video]

AI chatbots could be effective in eroding people’s beliefs in conspiracy theories, suggests a new study that used ChatGPT to counter them with fact-checked information.

The conventional understanding of why people believe in conspiracy theories holds that once someone goes down the rabbit hole—be it ancient aliens, the Illuminati, or the theory that Princess Diana was murdered—it’s almost impossible to convince them otherwise, even when confronted with compelling evidence to the contrary.

Researchers from MIT, Cornell, and American University say they have come up with a solution involving an AI chatbot. Across two experiments, the researchers had ChatGPT (running on the GPT-4 Turbo model) interact with more than 2,000 Americans about a conspiracy theory they believed in.

Within three rounds of conversation with the chatbot, participants’ belief in their chosen conspiracy theory was reduced by 20 percent on average. Following up two months later, they found that the participants hadn’t reverted to …