F.D. Flam, Columnist

AI Can Debunk Conspiracy Theories Better Than Humans

Believers often invest huge amounts of time in researching their theories online. Maybe only LLMs can keep up.

September 14, 2024 at 12:00 PM UTC

By F.D. Flam

F.D. Flam is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering science. She is host of the “Follow the Science” podcast.

True believer.
Photographer: Rick Loomis/Getty Images

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Scientists surprised themselves when they found they could instruct a version of ChatGPT to gently dissuade people of their beliefs in conspiracy theories — such as notions that Covid-19 was a deliberate attempt at population control or that 9/11 was an inside job.

The most important revelation wasn’t about the power of AI, but about the workings of the human mind. The experiment punctured the popular myth that we’re in a post-truth era where evidence no longer matters, and it flew in the face of a prevailing view in psychology that people cling to conspiracy theories for emotional reasons and that no amount of evidence can ever disabuse them.