Why might users trust their AI over humans? For one thing, part of the magic trick that AI pulls is speaking in an authoritative voice. Who are you going to believe, the chatbot you’re using all day or some random librarian on the phone?

One thing I’ve learnt, from times before AI, is to be specially cautious of people using an authoritative voice. It’s often used to mask bullshit, to manipulate you into doing their bidding, to inflate their egos at the detriment of your knowledge, so goes on. In the meantime, people saying sensible things — sane conclusions, fruit of rational arguments and good data — typically don’t need it at all, since what they say defends itself.

But I know I’m doing the opposite of what most people do; if you speak authoritatively towards them, they’ll trust you more, not less. And the output of those text generators was heavily weighted towards sounding authoritative for this reason.

Nowadays, in AI times, I do hope more people do things my way, and immediately raise mental red flags towards people vomiting certainty. Not because it makes me feel good (…it does, it makes me feel like vanguard), but because I think it’ll help fight the problem of disinformation. That was always here, I think; it’s only that AI made it even more evident.