Research suggest LLM chatbots may be effective against conspiracy theories

ThePowerOfGeek , 4 hours ago

I find the fact that the Qanon loonies are appropriating the symbolism of legendary rock band Queen both hilarious and offensive.

ganksy , 4 hours ago

The cane beetles are ravaging the continent! What if we found some special toads to eat the beetles??

dhork , 4 hours ago

Alternatively, they spend so much of their time listening to bots on the Internet that only other bots make sense to them.

paraphrand , 1 hour ago

The ones I’ve seen are trigger happy on labeling anyone who disagrees a bot.

It seems both sides are really into the idea that robots are discussing things with conspiracy theorists.

crimsoncobalt , 3 hours ago

Here’s a link to the chatbot. It’s pretty good at explaining things and has a lot of patience for the hopeless drivel conspiracy theories contain. I like how it doesn’t just refute them with specific evidence, but tears apart the very logic of the conspiracy theories.

survey.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a63Ctm1v22DNlie

AbouBenAdhem , 3 hours ago

They don’t mention any kind of control—I guess an appropriate one would be having a human interact with the participants one-on-one to see if they were as effective. (Although even if they were, the chatbots would likely be easier to implement in practice.)

1984 , 3 hours ago (edited 3 hours ago)

Lol, no. Anyone who believes this have no idea what it means to believe in conspiracy theories. Trust me, it’s not that they can’t find the Wikipedia page with the official information, or can’t turn on the TV and listen to what the news says.

It’s that they have no trust in those things. Chat gpt won’t change that.

Kowowow , 2 hours ago

Check out knowledge fight if you want to see the effect gpt is having on alex jones, if nothing else it’s forcing him to be a better listener because he can’t interupt it without the bot losing it’s train of thought

darvocet , 51 minutes ago

“Hello, ChatGPT. if you don’t mind could you tell us about Tampon Tim?”

Kowowow , 42 minutes ago

“Do you think a sunset in beautiful?”

Kusimulkku , 2 hours ago

I think some of them will just give more ammunition to the loonies since the chatbots happily give you wrong information

dsilverz , 1 hour ago

I’m not supporting conspiracy theories (they don’t even matter to me anymore), but people fiercely attacking conspiracy theories generally are unbeknownst to how some few conspiracy theories became facts (not every crazy-fetched theory, but a little few): back in 2012, I was aware of the existence of an annual meeting called “Bilderberg Meetings”. Around 2014, an official website popped up, finally listing matters and subjects being discussed at their secret meetings, as well as its attendees, but the group existed since 1954, so decades of talking about global matters behind closed doors. It took a journalist (now deceased) nicknamed as “Big Jim” to disclose the topic list, attendees, meeting dates (beginning and ending) and location (such as which 5-star hotel to be paid with taxpayers money), before the site finally became to disclose such things.

I remember being called “crazy” when I pointed to the fact that such meetings existed, now it’s simply normal and well-accepted (but it doesn’t take back the offenses I received that time). That’s OK for me, because I moved on. As I said, it doesn’t matter to me anymore, now I’m really numb to it all. There are worse things than rich people and politicians gathering behind closed doors, such as impending weather disasters and scorching temperatures due to the now irreversible climate change (in parts, some of the corporations that attended such meetings to be blamed, but not only them; if they were transparent about their discussions about climate change, maybe people opened their eyes earlier about how impending were the now climate disaster, uniting and charging companies and governments to earlier actions with the needed transparency).

TL;DR: For a fun, I tried the mentioned bot. I talked to it about the former secrecy of Bilderberg meeting (before 2014, when their official website got online).

He “agreed” but pointed on how “this level of privacy is not uncommon in high-level discussions” and regarding “media spotlight and pressure, which is a reason why the meetings are private”. I counter-argued by pointing out how the phrase “If you got nothing to hide, you got nothing to fear” does not only apply to “mortal citizens” but also to CEOs and politicians, but it insisted on how such meetings needs “discretion”.

One thing it pointed is valid, tho: “correlation doesn’t imply causation”. Indeed, the fact that such meetings were undisclosed doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re criminal or conspiratory. But does the same rule apply for citizens? The same rules should apply for both the “powerful” and the citizens.

As I said, time passes, really bad things happened so far (climate change, rise of bigotry and inflation worldwide, COVID-19 with seven million fatalities reported but up to 30 million estimated deceases including one of my uncles, etc) and I became really, really numb, so I don’t care anymore. Humanity (even the richest men) is deadwalking towards extinction, anyways. Unfortunately. Sorry for my sadness and numbness.

Etterra , 1 hour ago

My former strategy was to just saturation bomb them with new, increasingly ridiculous conspiracies so that they would overflow and start blurring into each other. That way the unhinged lunatics could lose all concept of reality so that no matter what conspiracy in particular they started talking about, they just sound like a rambling drunk on the subway.

DarkCloud , 51 minutes ago

As long as they’re not hallucinating, which anyone (including conspiracy theorists) can ask them to do. They they turn into conspiracy confirming machines.