collaborators

6 papers

cs.CY2026

AI systems out-persuade expert humans

Kobi Hackenburg, Caroline Wagner, Luke Hewitt +5

Many societal decisions are settled by contests of persuasion. Conversational AI is a powerful new entrant in these contests, but whether it can out-persuade skilled and highly inc…

cs.AI2026

Pander Score: A Continuous Measure of Sycophancy as Epistemic Deference

Alejandro Botas, Paul de Font-Reaulx, Luke Hewitt

Current AI models frequently exhibit epistemic sycophancy, endorsing claims to agree with a user. Existing evaluations typically measure this either by assessing what it takes to m…

cs.CY2026

Artificial intelligence can persuade people to take political actions

Kobi Hackenburg, Luke Hewitt, Caroline Wagner +2

There is substantial concern about the ability of advanced artificial intelligence to influence people's behaviour. A rapidly growing body of research has found that AI can produce…

cs.CL2026

When Large Language Models are More PersuasiveThan Incentivized Humans, and Why

Philipp Schoenegger, Francesco Salvi, Jiacheng Liu +39

Large Language Models (LLMs) have been shown to be highly persuasive, but when and why they outperform humans is still an open question. We compare the persuasiveness of two LLMs (…

cs.CY2026

DeliberationBench: A Normative Benchmark for the Influence of Large Language Models on Users' Views

Luke Hewitt, Maximilian Kroner Dale, Paul de Font-Reaulx

As large language models (LLMs) become pervasive as assistants and thought partners, it is important to characterize their persuasive influence on users' beliefs. However, a centra…

cs.CL2025

The Levers of Political Persuasion with Conversational AI

Kobi Hackenburg, Ben M. Tappin, Luke Hewitt +7

There are widespread fears that conversational AI could soon exert unprecedented influence over human beliefs. Here, in three large-scale experiments (N=76,977), we deployed 19 LLM…