Researchers Warn: AI Algorithms Can Influence People's Voting and Dating Decisions

In a new series of experiments, artificial intelligence (A.I.) algorithms were able to influence people's preferences for fictitious political candidates or potential romantic partners, depending on whether recommendations were explicit or covert. Ujué Agudo and Helena Matute of Universidad de Deusto in Bilbao, Spain, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on April 21, 2021. From Facebook to Google search results, many people encounter A.I. algorithms every day. Private companies are conducting extensive research on the data of their users, generating insights into human behavior that are not publicly available. Academic social science research lags behind private research, and public knowledge on how A.I. algorithms might shape people's decisions is lacking. To shed new light, Agudo and Matute conducted a series of experiments that tested the influence of A.I. algorithms in different contexts.