Sophistry on Steroids? The Ethics, Epistemology and Politics of Persuasive AI

This paper examines the ethical, epistemological, and political implications of persuasive AI technologies. Recent research suggests that AI is roughly as persuasive as humans in many contexts. Should this concern us? I argue that, while some worries about persuasive AI may be overblown, we should be worried for a mix of ethical, epistemological and political reasons. Most centrally, we should be worried because persuasive AI may lead to a small number of powerful actors dominating what I call the “marketplace of arguments”—the set of arguments that provide the materials we use to discuss important moral, political and societal issues.