AI Can Make Conflict Worse or Better - Livestream

There has been much discussion of how AI can help humans cooperate, but much less about what happens when you add AI to humans who disagree -- potentially violently. Social media systems, which are increasingly AI driven, may amplify divisive or escalatory narratives. LLMs may similarly exacerbate conflict, especially if they give different answers to people on different sides. I'll present recent work testing alternative social media algorithms with real users on real platforms in an attempt to reduce polarization around the 2024 election, and using LLMs to produce "politically neutral" answers on maximally controversial topics. These early experiments give us a glimpse into the turbulent future of AI-mediated conflict.

Speaker: Jonathan Stray, UC Berkeley

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