Science deep dive examines how AI persuasion works — and why real-world effects may be milder

_FelixSimon_ · x · 2026-09-02

Felix Simon highlights Kai Kupferschmidt's Science feature on how AI persuasion actually works, crediting researcher Ben Tappin and the Transformer team for input.

The key caveats: persuasion experiments don't translate directly to the real world, people constantly encounter conflicting messages, and individuals differ widely in how persuadable they are — many actively resist persuasion attempts.

A useful counterweight to alarmist takes on AI-driven opinion manipulation.

Related event: Oxford researcher: AI persuasion is strong in labs but overhyped in the real world(5 posts)→

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