AI Chatbots Can Sway Voters Better Than Political Ads

[GreatGazoo]

A conversation with a chatbot can shift people's political views—but the most persuasive models also spread the most misinformation.

A multi-university team of researchers has found that chatting with a politically biased AI model was more effective than political advertisements at nudging both Democrats and Republicans to support presidential candidates of the opposing party. The chatbots swayed opinions by citing facts and evidence, but they were not always accurate—in fact, the researchers found, the most persuasive models said the most untrue things.
...
optimizing persuasiveness came at the cost of truthfulness. When the models became more persuasive, they increasingly provided misleading or false information—and no one is sure why. “It could be that as the models learn to deploy more and more facts, they essentially reach to the bottom of the barrel of stuff they know, so the facts get worse-quality,” says Hackenburg.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/04/1128824/ai-chatbots-can-sway-voters-better-than-political-advertisements/

Worked better in Poland and Canada than the USA

Likely it will work even better as AI uses more data about each individual human to tailor its manipulation ("nudging&quot . In data driven marketing it is believed that humans filter facts through narratives. The brain makes meaning through narratives, not through logic.

So by knowing which of the 4 major categories an individual prefers for their narratives AI can go immediately to the most effective narrative type for that person. The theory of narratives holds that people have strong preferences for one of the following types : 1) big picture 2) details and anecdotes 3) caregiving and empathy, or 4) distrust, cynicism and guardrails.

[Clouds Passing]

1. When fake "intelligence" can sway people's opinions.....Lord help us.

[awesomerwb1]

2. Facebook alone did in the past few elections

"Lord help us" was in 2016 (at least)