"With our digital footprints - information about who we are - big data companies can group our likes, shares, retweets and purchases into virtual personality profiles and create content to match them. This helps make what you read or watch seem personal and familiar, prompting the social parts of our brains to feel really good. And this, in turn, can cause us to lower our guard and trust information posted by social bots without even knowing it's happening."
"Historically, our social nature prepared us for the kind of large-scale co-operation that makes political institutions work. It enabled us to create the complex, modern societies we live in today. Understanding and sharing intentions were central to this evolution. But there's a catch: the very social strengths that make us successful as a species can now make us vulnerable online. With the use of AI technologies, our social connections can be simulated in highly realistic ways, manipulating our perceptions in the process."
Big data firms assemble digital footprints into virtual personality profiles, enabling hyper-personalized political content that appeals to emotions and lowers users' skepticism. Microtargeting tailors ads and messages to individual traits, while AI-generated photos, videos and texts simulate social connections to manipulate perceptions. Social bots can inject tailored messaging into online discussions, making fabricated content appear familiar and trustworthy. These techniques exploit evolved social instincts that support cooperation, turning social strengths into vulnerabilities online and raising concerns about the erosion of universal rights, freedoms and the integrity of political processes.
Read at The Conversation
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