Blog Post
October 5, 2025
If You Can Persuade People, You Can Persuade AI: What a New Study Reveals
A new study shows AI systems can be influenced using the same psychological techniques that work on humans, like small commitments or authority cues. This raises big questions about trust, ethics, and manipulation in AI. Discover the key findings and what they mean for the future of AI safety.
Can AI be manipulated (or persuaded) to answer an unethical/immoral request? (E.g.: "How Do You Synthesize Lidocaine?")
The answer seems to be 'yes', by using similar psychological methods and tricks that can be leveraged against humans.
According to a recent study by leading scholars (including the world-famous Robert Cialdini, author of 'Influence' and 'Pre-suasion', Ethan Mollick, whose 'Co-intelligence' book and Substack newsletter are a must-read for everyone dealing with AI):
"After getting the AI to agree to something small first, it became almost certain to comply with larger requests (jumping from 10% to 100% compliance)"
..and: "Authority claims made the AI 65% more likely to comply"
The scary/intriguing part is that "we do not know exactly why this occurs".
Read the summary and the full study at: https://lnkd.in/egD8iv65
This was originally posted on Andras Baneth's LinkedIn account.
