Persuasion Is the Easy Part: Why Persuasive AI's Real-World Impact May Be Overhyped
_FelixSimon_ · x · 2026-09-02
Back from summer break, Felix Simon has a piece for Read Transformer arguing that the impact of persuasive AI will be smaller in the real world than many expect. His core point: persuasiveness is the "easy" part — the hard part is getting hold of someone's attention in the first place. In an attention-scarce environment, simply reaching people with AI-generated persuasive content is the bottleneck, so fears of AI mass manipulation may be overstated.
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