Controversial artificial intelligence (AI) tools could soon ‘secretly influence’ consumer decision-making in a new commercial frontier, researchers at the University of Cambridge have warned in a paper.
According to a report by news agencies published in the Quamitarrap newspaper, the research says that the potentially “lucrative but disturbing” market emerging for “digital signals of intent” could affect everything from buying movie tickets to voting for political candidates in the near future.
The research further suggests that our growing familiarity with chatbots, digital tutors and other so-called ‘anthropomorphic’ AI agents is helping to enable this new array of motivational technologies.
Artificial intelligence will combine our knowledge of online habits with an increasing ability to get to know the user and anticipate their desires, building ‘new levels of trust and understanding,’ say two co-authors of the paper.
Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence Visiting Scholar and co-author Dr. Yaqub Chaudhry said that tremendous resources are being spent deploying artificial intelligence assistants in every walk of life, which raises the question of whose interests and objectives are these so-called assistants designed to serve?
The paper, published in the Harvard Data Science Review, says it cannot be controlled, leading to ‘industrial-scale social manipulation’, highlighting how this emerging sector – dubbed the ‘intention economy’ – will profile consumers’ attention and communication styles and link them to their patterns of behaviour and choice.
Yaqub Chaudhry, co-author of the study, said that artificial intelligence tools are already being developed to capture, estimate, collect, record, understand, predict, and ultimately modify and change human plans and objectives.
Another co-author, Dr. Joni Penn and Yaqoob Chaudhry, write that the ‘economy of intention’ will be an economy of attention, developed over time, profiling how consumers’ attention and communication styles are linked to behavioral patterns and our choices.
According to the University of Cambridge, Yaqoob Chaudhry said that while some intentions are temporary, classifying and targeting those that persist will be highly profitable for advertisers.
According to the research, the new artificial intelligence will rely on so-called large language models, or LLMs, to target users’ abilities, politics, vocabulary, age, gender, online history and even preferences for flattery and silliness.
It will be linked to other emerging artificial intelligence technologies, which bid to achieve a specific goal, such as selling cinema tickets, or directing conversations towards specific platforms, advertisers, businesses and even political organisations.
Joni Penn said that for decades ‘consumer attention’ has been the ‘currency’ of the internet, with sharing our attention with social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram fueling the online economy.
He warned that unless regulated, the ‘intention economy’ will see your motivations as the new currency, like gold to those who target, manipulate and sell human intentions.
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