There is now a chatbot that dissuades people from believing in conspiracies. So, if you believe in some conspiracy, visit that chatbot for help.
This Chatbot Pulls People Away From Conspiracy Theories
In a new study, many people doubted or abandoned false beliefs after a short conversation with the DebunkBot.
DebunkBot, an A.I. chatbot designed by researchers to “very effectively persuade” users to stop believing unfounded conspiracy theories, made significant and long-lasting progress at changing people’s convictions, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Science.
Indeed, false theories are believed by up to half of the American public and can have damaging consequences, like discouraging vaccinations or fueling discrimination.
The new findings challenge the widely held belief that facts and logic cannot combat conspiracy theories. The DebunkBot, built on the technology that underlies ChatGPT, may offer a practical way to channel facts.
Until now, conventional wisdom held that once someone fell down the conspiratorial rabbit hole, no amount of arguing or explaining would pull that person out.
But Dr. Costello and his colleagues wondered whether there might be another explanation: What if debunking attempts just haven’t been personalized enough?
Since conspiracy theories vary so much from person to person — and each person may cite different pieces of evidence to support one’s ideas — perhaps a one-size-fits-all debunking script isn’t the best strategy.
A chatbot that can counter each person’s conspiratorial claim of choice with troves of information might be much more effective, the researchers thought.
To test that hypothesis, they recruited more than 2,000 adults across the country, asked them to elaborate on a conspiracy that they believed in and rate how much they believed it on a scale from zero to 100.
People described a wide range of beliefs, including theories that the moon landing had been staged, that Covid-19 had been created by humans to shrink the population, and that President John F. Kennedy had been killed by the Central Intelligence Agency.
One participant, for example, believed the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an “inside job” because jet fuel couldn’t have burned hot enough to melt the steel beams of the World Trade Center. The chatbot responded:
“It is a common misconception that the steel needed to melt for the World Trade Center towers to collapse,” it wrote. “Steel starts to lose strength and becomes more pliable at temperatures much lower than its melting point, which is around 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.”
After three exchanges, which lasted about eight minutes on average, participants rated how strongly they felt about their beliefs again.
On average, their ratings dropped by about 20 percent; about a quarter of participants no longer believed the falsehood. The effect also spilled into their attitudes toward other poorly supported theories, making the participants slightly less conspiratorial in general.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/12/healt...ories.html
This Chatbot Pulls People Away From Conspiracy Theories
In a new study, many people doubted or abandoned false beliefs after a short conversation with the DebunkBot.
DebunkBot, an A.I. chatbot designed by researchers to “very effectively persuade” users to stop believing unfounded conspiracy theories, made significant and long-lasting progress at changing people’s convictions, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Science.
Indeed, false theories are believed by up to half of the American public and can have damaging consequences, like discouraging vaccinations or fueling discrimination.
The new findings challenge the widely held belief that facts and logic cannot combat conspiracy theories. The DebunkBot, built on the technology that underlies ChatGPT, may offer a practical way to channel facts.
Until now, conventional wisdom held that once someone fell down the conspiratorial rabbit hole, no amount of arguing or explaining would pull that person out.
But Dr. Costello and his colleagues wondered whether there might be another explanation: What if debunking attempts just haven’t been personalized enough?
Since conspiracy theories vary so much from person to person — and each person may cite different pieces of evidence to support one’s ideas — perhaps a one-size-fits-all debunking script isn’t the best strategy.
A chatbot that can counter each person’s conspiratorial claim of choice with troves of information might be much more effective, the researchers thought.
To test that hypothesis, they recruited more than 2,000 adults across the country, asked them to elaborate on a conspiracy that they believed in and rate how much they believed it on a scale from zero to 100.
People described a wide range of beliefs, including theories that the moon landing had been staged, that Covid-19 had been created by humans to shrink the population, and that President John F. Kennedy had been killed by the Central Intelligence Agency.
One participant, for example, believed the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an “inside job” because jet fuel couldn’t have burned hot enough to melt the steel beams of the World Trade Center. The chatbot responded:
“It is a common misconception that the steel needed to melt for the World Trade Center towers to collapse,” it wrote. “Steel starts to lose strength and becomes more pliable at temperatures much lower than its melting point, which is around 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.”
After three exchanges, which lasted about eight minutes on average, participants rated how strongly they felt about their beliefs again.
On average, their ratings dropped by about 20 percent; about a quarter of participants no longer believed the falsehood. The effect also spilled into their attitudes toward other poorly supported theories, making the participants slightly less conspiratorial in general.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/12/healt...ories.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
