Their findings are the latest in a growing body of research demonstrating LLMs’ powers of persuasion. The authors warn they show how AI tools can craft sophisticated, persuasive arguments if they have even minimal information about the humans they’re interacting with. The researchers recruited 900 people based in the US and got them to provide personal information like their gender, age, ethnicity, education level, employment status, and political affiliation. Each participant was told to argue either in favor of or against the topic, and in some cases they were provided with personal information about their opponent, so they could better tailor their argument. At the end, participants said how much they agreed with the proposition and whether they thought they were arguing with a human or an AI.