Yuval Noah Harari: What Happens When the Bots Compete for Your Love?; The New York Times, September 4, 2024

Yuval Noah Harari. Mr. Harari is a historian and the author of the forthcoming book “Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks From the Stone Age to AI,” from which this essay is adapted., The New York Times; Yuval Noah Harari: What Happens When the Bots Compete for Your Love?

"Democracy is a conversation. Its function and survival depend on the available information technology...

Moreover, while not all of us will consciously choose to enter a relationship with an A.I., we might find ourselves conducting online discussions about climate change or abortion rights with entities that we think are humans but are actually bots. When we engage in a political debate with a bot impersonating a human, we lose twice. First, it is pointless for us to waste time in trying to change the opinions of a propaganda bot, which is just not open to persuasion. Second, the more we talk with the bot, the more we disclose about ourselves, making it easier for the bot to hone its arguments and sway our views.

Information technology has always been a double-edged sword. The invention of writing spread knowledge, but it also led to the formation of centralized authoritarian empires. After Gutenberg introduced print to Europe, the first best sellers were inflammatory religious tracts and witch-hunting manuals. As for the telegraph and radio, they made possible the rise not only of modern democracy but also of modern totalitarianism.

Faced with a new generation of bots that can masquerade as humans and mass-produce intimacy, democracies should protect themselves by banning counterfeit humans — for example, social media bots that pretend to be human users. Before the rise of A.I., it was impossible to create fake humans, so nobody bothered to outlaw doing so. Soon the world will be flooded with fake humans.

A.I.s are welcome to join many conversations — in the classroom, the clinic and elsewhere — provided they identify themselves as A.I.s. But if a bot pretends to be human, it should be banned. If tech giants and libertarians complain that such measures violate freedom of speech, they should be reminded that freedom of speech is a human right that should be reserved for humans, not bots."