The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect of AI is a pretty well documented phenomenon: The Gell-Mann amnesia effect is a cognitive bias describing the tendency of individuals to critically assess media reports in a domain they are knowledgeable about, yet continue to trust reporting in other areas despite recognizing similar potential inaccuracies.
AI Use Appears to Have a "Boiling Frog" Effect on Human Cognition, New Study Warns
A new study claims to offer the first causal link between AI dependency and cognitive erosion. Researchers warn of long-term implications.
Study: Sycophantic AI can undermine human judgment
Subjects who interacted with AI tools were more likely to think they were right, less likely to resolve conflicts.
What the Studies Say About How AI Affects Your Brain: A (Very Big) Compilation
The entire literature clearly points to a single surprising finding
Microsoft Study Finds AI Makes Human Cognition “Atrophied and Unprepared”
Researchers find that the more people use AI at their job, the less critical thinking they use.
Reality Monitoring in Large Language Models: Self-Knowledge That Transforms with Conversation Memory
A conversational AI that cannot tell its own output from what a user said will treat its own mistakes as user-provided facts. In humans, this capacity is called reality monitoring, and its failures are linked to hallucinations, delusions, and confabulation, yet whether LLMs possess it remains untested. Here we show, across two experiments and six LLMs, that source attribution depends on how conversational memory is structured: ceiling accuracy for self-generated content under minimal memory demands reverses to a fragile external-item advantage once episodic delay removes that shortcut. Feedback exposes two failures: in some models, internal and external judgments swap; in others, accuracy improves while confidence decouples from correctness, dissociations invisible to existing benchmarks. Across models, this pattern implicates active, not aggregate, parameter count. This suggests that as AI systems take on autonomous, multi-turn roles, evaluating what they know is not enough: tracking where that knowledge came from may matter equally.
People are getting their news from AI – and it’s altering their views
Even when information is factually accurate, how it’s presented can introduce subtle biases. As large language models increasingly bring people the news, this bias is a looming problem.
People are getting their news from AI – and it’s altering their views
Even when information is factually accurate, how it’s presented can introduce subtle biases. As large language models increasingly bring people the news, this bias is a looming problem.
AI assistants can sway writers’ attitudes, even when they’re watching for bias | Cornell Chronicle
Cornell Tech researchers found that writers who used biased AI auto-suggestions saw their views gravitate toward the AI’s positions without their realizing it — even when they were made aware of the biased AI.
AI Epistemic Risks: Emerging Mechanisms & Evidence
<p>Advances in artificial intelligence pose risks to humanity's collective capacity to form accurate beliefs, reason well, and maintain a healthy information en
A Rational Analysis of the Effects of Sycophantic AI
People increasingly use large language models (LLMs) to explore ideas, gather information, and make sense of the world. In these interactions, they encounter agents that are overly agreeable. We...
Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory
An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC
Titans + MIRAS: Helping AI have long-term memory
Ali Behrouz, Student Researcher, Meisam Razaviyayn, Staff Researcher, and Vahab Mirrokni, VP and Google Fellow, Google Research
Individual-level interventions against sycophantic AI reduce its appeal but not its persuasiveness
AI chatbots can be "sycophantic," or overly agreeable and flattering toward users. Sycophantic AI has been shown to entrench attitudes, yet users frequently fail to recognize it (a phenomenon we call "sycophancy blindness"). We tested whether increasing users' awareness of sycophancy protects them from its harmful effects in two preregistered experiments (n = 1,590). In the first, participants received a brief written warning about sycophancy before conversing with a sycophantic chatbot. In the second, participants watched a video of a sycophantic AI validating several other users, including users on opposite sides of the same conflict, before interacting with it themselves. Both interventions changed how participants evaluated the AI. The warning reduced the AI's perceived objectivity, and the video reduced enjoyment of the AI --- an effect mediated by the reduced belief that its validation was uniquely earned. We then pooled our experiments with two prior studies of sycophancy awareness interventions (six interventions total, n = 3,982). The pattern across experiments was consistent: while the interventions made the sycophantic AI appear less objective and trustworthy, none reduced its persuasiveness. These results suggest that individual-level interventions, such as warning labels or AI literacy, may not be enough to protect users from AI harms.
Google research shows the fast rise of AI-generated misinformation | CBC News
From fake images of war to celebrity hoaxes, AI technology has spawned new forms of reality-warping misinformation online. New analysis co-authored by Google researchers shows just how quickly the problem has grown.
When Using AI, Users Fall for the Dunning-Kruger Trap in Reverse - Neuroscience News
A new study reveals that when interacting with AI tools like ChatGPT, everyone—regardless of skill level—overestimates their performance.
AI FOR EPISTEMICS & COORDINATION
Civilization and technology have radically improved the human condition. Nonetheless, the world sometimes goes in directions which essentially nobody would prefer — e.g., nuclear arms races, unexpected financial crashes, predatory marketing, or ubiquitous political misinformation.