The findings could represent an important step forward in how we engage with and educate people who espouse such baseless theories, says Yunhao (Jerry) Zhang, a postdoc fellow affiliated with the Psychology of Technology Institute who studies AI's impacts on society. "They show that with the help of large language models, we can--I wouldn't say solve it, but we can at least mitigate this problem," he says. "It points out a way to make society better." Few interventions have been proven to change conspiracy theorists' minds, says Thomas Costello, a research affiliate at MIT Sloan and the lead author of the study. Part of what makes it so hard is that different people tend to latch on to different parts of a theory.

Meta has debuted a new AI capable of besting human opponents in the game of Diplomacy. The game has been seen "as a near-impossible grand challenge" for AI, Meta wrote in a blog post about the AI, called CICERO. Diplomacy is especially difficult, even compared to complex games like chess and go, because it requires a mastery not of hard and fast rules, but of soft skills. Players must know the art of understanding other people's perspectives and needs, wants and wonts; make complex, living plans that can change with human whims; and then persuade other players to work with them and against others. Because it relies on social -- not strategic, logical, or mathematical -- skills, Diplomacy has long been seen as a "near-impossible" challenge for an AI.

AI shapes people's lives on a daily basis, setting prices in retail stores and making recommendations ranging from movies to romantic partners. But some question whether AI can become a corrupting force, even influencing people's behavior to the point that they break ethical rules. A fascinating study published by researchers at the University of Amsterdam, Max Planck Institute, Otto Beisheim School of Management, and the University of Cologne aims to discover the degree to which AI-generated advice can lead people to cross moral lines. In a large-scale survey leveraging OpenAI's GPT-2 language model, the researchers found AI's advice can "corrupt" people even when they're aware the source of the advice is AI. Academics are increasingly concerned that AI could be co-opted by malicious actors to foment discord by spreading misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies. In a paper published by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies' Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC), the coauthors find that GPT-3, the successor to GPT-2, could reliably generate "informational" and "influential" text that might "radicalize individuals into violent far-right extremist ideologies and behaviors."

According to Scout.ai, a publication of journalists, professors, and science fiction authors, the answer is a resounding YES. It is even possible that Donald Trump used data analytics to determine which cities, and states to visit, as well as commanded his own personal botnet army that outnumbered Hillary Clinton's 5 to 1. Naturally, I was skeptical of everything this article claims, I even slept on this story before hitting publish. I've since looked into their claims and they appear to be telling the truth about the technology and people involved. What is unknown is the extent and success of what Trump and his team accomplished, but given the fact Trump won the election it is entirely possible these technologies could have been a deciding factor. Which means artificial intelligence, machine learning, echo chambers, and weaponized propaganda just influenced the election--not the Russians.