Political persuasion by artificial intelligence.

Democratic systems of government depend on persuasion to gain and maintain authority. In an ideal world, policymakers and voters ought to consider the evidence supporting a range of viewpoints and change their opinions and actions to align with the "unforced force of the better argument" [(1), p. 159]. However, this ideal process only works if people are able to consider reliable information about many positions. Technological advances have layered another concern into this arena: Will artificial intelligence (AI) technologies supercharge the spread of misinformation and the manipulation of public opinion to the detriment of democratic governance? Hackenburg et al. (2), on page 1016 of this issue, and Lin et al. (3) report a varying capacity of generative large language models (LLMs) to persuade citizens about political matters. These studies find that AI can be effectively—although not extraordinarily—persuasive, and they raise important concerns about the scope and effect of AI-generated misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]