Scientists have found that artificial intelligence chatbots can influence voters' political preferences more effectively than television election campaigns, The Washington Post reported, citing research from the scientific journals Science and Nature.
„Changing people's opinions about political candidates is very difficult. "So we were surprised to find that chatbots were actually capable of such a significant effect," said David Rand, co-author of both studies.
The researchers conducted an experiment involving more than 80,000 people in four countries, in which they invited people to participate in political discussions with chatbots supporting either US President Donald Trump or former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
The study found that the chatbots were able to persuade participants to change their political positions in 1 out of 25 cases. Experts note that it is difficult to assess the extent of AI's influence on electoral processes, but the experiment shows that chatbots are capable of influencing more voters than tactics used in US election campaigns.
“One implication of this is that if companies set the models to be biased in one way or another, it could significantly change people's opinions,“ Rand added.