Scientists surprised themselves when they found they could instruct a version of ChatGPT to gently dissuade people of their beliefs in conspiracy theories ¡ª such as notions that COVID-19 was a deliberate attempt at population control or that 9/11 was an inside job.
The most important revelation wasn¡¯t about the power of AI, but about the workings of the human mind. The experiment punctured the popular myth that we¡¯re in a post-truth era where evidence no longer matters and it flew in the face of a prevailing view in psychology that people cling to conspiracy theories for emotional reasons and that no amount of evidence can ever disabuse them.
¡°It¡¯s really the most uplifting research I¡¯ve ever I done,¡± said psychologist Gordon Pennycook of Cornell University and one of the authors of the study. Study subjects were surprisingly amenable to evidence when it was presented the right way.
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