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AI chatbots are becoming experts at changing people's minds

139 points · 105 comments · rbanffy

  1. VCFundedGenYer · · focus · HN ↗

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    1. icantevenhold · · focus · HN ↗

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      1. tacitusarc · · focus · HN ↗
        Perfectly fine to disagree with someone but the personal attack is unnecessary
        1. hannasanarion · · focus · HN ↗
          And the original accusation that "only low IQ people" are influenced by the words that they read is not?

          The remark is risible because it is an example of why it it false. Everyone is subject to influence by words, that's what words are for. Being "confidently incorrect" is also called being "mistaken", and everyone does it every day, including the commenter by the very act of saying it never happens.

          It only takes a small modicum of thought to prove that the thesis is obviously completely false, yet it is stated with absolute sneering confidence and contempt.

          By the commenter's logic, only someone with "low IQ" would believe their own words.

          1. Chance-Device · · focus · HN ↗
            But your quote isn’t a quote from that post, you’ve made a straw man. What if what he says is true? What if less intelligent people are more inclined to believe those who seem intelligent, but without beging able to gauge their intelligence correctly? Or the same with authority figures, or simply agreeing with “what everyone knows”? All of these are heuristics we should expect when reasoning is difficult for a person.

            These are also not the only ways that people can be misled about things, and susceptibility to them is likely not exclusively correlated to intelligence, but they might well be heuristics that LLMs can leverage effectively.

            Also that correlation I mention likely can be quantified, but I doubt anyone is doing the research on it.

            1. pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
              >What if less intelligent people are more inclined to believe those who seem intelligent,

              I'm going to assume the actual truth behind this is complex, varied, and social.

              When I was younger I had moved from a school that slightly above average to one that was below average in grades. The area had a really strong cult of ignorance feeling and I saw a lot of different behaviors in people that reflect themselves in political patterns. People that embrace ignorance seem much less likely to follow people that outwardly signal intelligence, quite often the opposite happens and they outright reject them. Instead of intelligence they are much more apt to believe those that broadcast success.

              This quite often leads to power seeking individuals "playing dumb" and bolstering their success signal. "Awe shucks, that guy that got top scores at Harvard is just like me who didn't graduate high school" would be a good analogy to frame it.

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