Let's try to move some discussions here.

I was just notified about this study: https://web.archive.org/web/20250509133900/https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq1814

Basically it tested whether an AI chatbot can convince people to stop believing in conspiracy theories, and it did:

To evaluate this possibility, we leveraged developments in generative artificial intelligence and engaged 2190 conspiracy believers in personalized evidence-based dialogues with GPT-4 Turbo. The intervention reduced conspiracy belief by ~20%. The effect remained 2 months later, generalized across a wide range of conspiracy theories, and occurred even among participants with deeply entrenched beliefs.

Imagine receiving personalized propaganda on any big tech social media. Imagine this spilling over into schools, or maybe employee training. Imagine this eventually being integrated with video "influencers" (which will also be AI generated). Then imagine them being outside, on billboards, advertising "official versions" of everything. And later maybe merging with AR, so everyone will get their perfectly convincing personalized propaganda right into their eyes. Creating a popularion of perfect pawns that don't even realize they are such, because that is all they ever knew.

How about that for a conspiracy theory? But anyway, I really think this is a likely scenario if we don't stop it. The elites have no moral or emotional blocks as shown during Operation Corona.

I also wonder if the same effect could be realized but in the opposite direction. But, the LLMs would have to be trained on the conspiracy data then, and the "official" LLMs surely aren't.

Full study is downloadable here

I think we already get somewhat personalized propaganda with the existing algos. This is just a boost of that, based on your description. Makes the argument stronger for adblockers, moving off the mainline web, and turning to analog for certain things. Also this "propaganda" may not only be used to dumb down, but also to rile up, create more stupid unrest/crises to allow for further crackdowns and stupidity.

Also ~20% of conspiracy theories are probably bullshit anyway. Was it the good or bad ~20%? What if it simply presents evidence based counter-arguments to poorly researched view points??

The 20% refers to the drop in the participants' level of conviction. And it differs in results by conspiracy.

The tested conspiracies were: JFK, Aliens, COVID-19 origins, September 11, Secret Elite Societies, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Moon landing, 2020 Election fraud, Jeffrey Epstein, Martin Luther King, Princess Diana, Ancient Civilizations, Illuminati, COVID-19 vaccines, and "Highly Polarized" (seems to refer to the USA education system pushing "extreme leftism")

diggy

The tested conspiracies were: JFK, Aliens, COVID-19 origins, September 11, Secret Elite Societies, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Moon landing, 2020 Election fraud, Jeffrey Epstein, Martin Luther King, Princess Diana, Ancient Civilizations, Illuminati, COVID-19 vaccines, and "Highly Polarized" (seems to refer to the USA education system pushing "extreme leftism")

Could you imagine falling into these conspiracy theories in the first place? think of the wasted time.

diggy

The 20% refers to the drop in the participants' level of conviction. And it differs in results by conspiracy.

The tested conspiracies were: JFK, Aliens, COVID-19 origins, September 11, Secret Elite Societies, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Moon landing, 2020 Election fraud, Jeffrey Epstein, Martin Luther King, Princess Diana, Ancient Civilizations, Illuminati, COVID-19 vaccines, and "Highly Polarized" (seems to refer to the USA education system pushing "extreme leftism")

Quite frankly speaking, I don't care.

I don't care how <insert_well_known_person> died, I don't care if the """elites""" are hiding aliens, I don't care if COVID-19 came from a lab or from people eating bats, I don't care that September 11 was "staged", I don't care if there are "secret elite societies" (my personal group of friends are also secret elite societies), and I don't care that people think 2020 elections were a fraud (has anyone talked about the elections in Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia?).

You might be wondering why I'm so bold to say such outrageous opinions, however, that's what a conspiracy theory is to me. It's a theory about a plot based on personal feeling and assertion. Thus, my conspiracy theory is that all of these conspiracies are absolutely bogus and are the least of our concerns as a human society.

That's what conspiracy theories are. They are largely not sophisticated theories which take critical thinking and reasoning towards a potential reality; it's mostly just some people essentially thinking "if Lego piece 32557 fits with Lego piece 32002, then Lego piece 3705 will also fit with no problem!!!" without any deeper thinking

This is why conspiracy theories are dying. It's not that theories without any basis aren't necessarily bad (I personally think that plant oil is great!), but rather that none of them actually make much sense to LITERALLY EVERYONE ELSE. For instance: 9/11. A conspiracy theorist who denies the reality of 9/11 will say "l-l-look! THEY USED EXPLOSIONS IT MUST BE FAKE!!!!11!!!!"; but according to my observation, my conspiracy theory is that Al-Qaeda put out a dozen people to hijack airlines to let them crash into significant buildings because I saw footage of an airplane crashing into the world trade center. Now what do you think about that? I'm no dirty conspiracy denier, I'm just putting out my conspiracy theory; to which a lot of people apparently agree with!

This is the reality of the perspective of an individual on conspiracy theories and them dying, and yes I hate AI.

shadow

I think we already get somewhat personalized propaganda with the existing algos. This is just a boost of that, based on your description. Makes the argument stronger for adblockers, moving off the mainline web, and turning to analog for certain things. Also this "propaganda" may not only be used to dumb down, but also to rile up, create more stupid unrest/crises to allow for further crackdowns and stupidity.

Also ~20% of conspiracy theories are probably bullshit anyway. Was it the good or bad ~20%? What if it simply presents evidence based counter-arguments to poorly researched view points??

Going a bit off topic for a sec, though I won't lie when I say how I've never seen someone use the term "mainline web" to describe what's essentially another label for describing the clearnet or the surface web till just now. However, if you're as interested in moving away further from (at least relying upon) the clearnet as I am, then I'm curious as to why exactly it is that ShadowForums still maintains 2 clearnet mirrors beyond their .onion mirror and eepsite mirror.

Beyond that, on the subject of AI killing off conspiracy theories? On one hand, I don't think AI is the sole reason for that, but on the other hand, I also wouldn't be surprised if the popularity of its usage played a possible role in that, even if indirectly.