Easy to Produce, Hard to Persuade: The Asymmetric Effects of AI on the Online Information Ecosystem

By: Brendan Nyhan, Jennifer Pan, Alexandra Siegel, Yamil Velez

Abstract:

The hype around large language models and other forms of AI has led to widespread concern about their effects on information exposure and persuasion, but these fears are likely to outstrip reality. AI is more likely to reinforce existing patterns of exposure and behavior than it is to transform how people understand and relate to the political world. Even with widespread AI use, we expect that most people will continue to consume relatively little political news and that it will be difficult to durably change public opinion at scale. The effects of AI on politics are likely to be greatest in the way it relaxes constraints on monitoring and production for lower-capacity actors and in how state control over AI development risks embedding regime-preferred narratives into the technology. We conclude by discussing how AI enables new approaches to studying information exposure and behavior.

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