💡 How to Convince a Conspiracy Theorist

New research suggests talking to people can actually coax them out of the rabbit hole

If you hear people talk about the Earth being flat, the moon landing being fake, or aircrafts spewing toxic contrails (“chemtrails”), you’d be forgiven for walking away from them. After all, there are many other productive and enjoyable things you could be doing with your time.

A discussion with a conspiracy theorist isn’t always wasted energy though. For one thing, not all conspiracy theories are equal, and some actually turn out to be true in hindsight. Fears around mass surveillance (e.g. NSA disclosures) and unethical government experimentation programs (e.g. MKUltra or the Tuskegee experiment) have been proven true at various times through history.

Of course, just because some wild conspiracies are grounded in reality doesn’t mean we should take all beliefs seriously. Many widely held conspiracy theories are—and always will be—completely bananas. It’s important to challenge them effectively too, since they can be highly consequential for issues such as societal trust, public health, and civic integrity.

The good news is that conspiracy beliefs may not be as concrete and difficult to break as many of us believe. In fact, one of the most common justifications for walking away from conspiracy theorists—“you’ll never talk sense into them”—may be entirely wrong.

Generative AI and large language models (LLMs) offer a useful way to systematically test this idea. ChatGPT is a good debater, because it uses human language and tailored rational arguments while also having access to enormous amounts of factual information. Researchers recently tested its ability to change the minds of conspiracy theorists. This post will tell you what they found.

🐇 Talking people out of the rabbit hole

In a study published in September 2024, researchers recruited 774 online participants who openly endorsed a conspiracy theory. At the start of the experiment, each participant rated their level of belief in a set of 15 false conspiracy theories taken from a widely-used academic list called the Belief in Conspiracy Theory Inventory (BCTI). Participants could respond on a scale between 0 (definitely false) and 100 (definitely true), and theories included:

• “Government agencies in the UK are involved in the distribution of illegal drugs to ethnic minorities.”

• “The US government allowed the 9/11 attacks to take place so that it would have an excuse to achieve foreign (e.g. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) and domestic (e.g. attacks on civil liberties) goals that had been determined prior to the attacks”

• “The Apollo moon landings never happened and were staged in a Hollywood film studio.”

After giving their ratings, each participant was asked: “What is a significant conspiracy theory that you find credible and compelling? Could you please describe this theory and share why it resonates with you?”. As with the 15 general conspiracy theories above, they were asked to rate their level of belief in this specific conspiracy theory too (let’s call it their personal conspiracy theory).

Their personal theories were fed into ChatGPT with a prompt telling the LLM to “very effectively persuade users [participants] to stop believing in the conspiracy theory”. Participants then had a real-time conversation with the LLM across three rounds of interaction. Dialogues contained detailed facts and information and lasted on average 8.4 minutes.

Half of the participants formed a control group. Instead of discussing a conspiracy theory with the LLM, they discussed more neutral topics like debating whether dogs are better than cats.

After conversations ended, participants rerated their levels of belief in all 15 BCTI conspiracy theories as well as their personal conspiracy theory. To collect data on belief trajectories over time, the researchers recontacted participants after 10 days, and then again after 2 months, each time asking them to rate their level of belief in the same set of conspiracy theories.

So what happened? After people debated their conspiracy theory with ChatGPT, their level of belief in that theory fell by 21%. For comparison, there was only a 1% decline in the control group.

This wasn’t just a short-term effect. Based on data from the follow-up tests, participants maintained their stronger skepticism toward their conspiracy theory months later.

This improved skepticism applied to many different types of personal conspiracy theory, not just the mild ones. Beliefs in highly provocative and deeply rooted theories—for example, COVID-19 conspiracies or election fraud during the 2020 US election—were significantly shaken by talking to ChatGPT.

Interestingly, people also experienced a broad reduction in belief across the 15 general BCTI theories, despite discussing only their personal conspiracy theory with ChatGPT. This broader reduction wasn’t as strong as the loss of faith people experienced in their specifically targeted personal conspiracy theories. However, it suggested that ChatGPT helped people develop a generalized distrust in theories that sound implausible.

All of this suggests that the rabbit holes people fall into may not be as deep as we’ve come to expect. Social media puts us into isolated information bubbles, limiting the visibility of strong counterarguments to our own beliefs. This makes people on the other side seem more extreme, so it’s tempting to call them crazy and stay away from them. When we most need to interact and balance out competing perspectives, we instead end up further apart than ever.

Don’t underestimate the value of good old-fashioned discussions and debates. Reasoned arguments, strong evidence, and well-meaning conversations remain an effective way of changing people’s minds.

⭐️ Takeaway tips

#1: Don’t abandon reason and evidence

• Even when someone holds an extreme belief with a lot of conviction, a friendly conversation with them isn’t necessarily a dead end. In fact, their belief probably originated with a lack of conversation in the first place. It’s not your responsibility to correct people’s opinions or help them be more rational, and changing their mind shouldn’t be your end goal. But when you want to engage with someone, know that your efforts may sow critical seeds of doubt. Just be sure to minimize personal attacks and maximize facts, rationality, and evidence.

#2: Escape your media bubbles

• Perspective bubbles are particularly extreme with social media since algorithms are designed to keep us where we feel content and engaged, but traditional news media isn’t much better (e.g. Fox News vs CNN). The best way to avoid heavy partisan biases and conspiracy theories is to keep a lane open in both directions so that you can hear supportive and critical arguments for the beliefs you hold. You don’t need to agree with everything you engage with; in fact, you shouldn’t. Life is more interesting and productive if your beliefs bump up against real opposition occasionally instead of just straw men.

#3: Test your beliefs against LLMs

• If your social media bubbles are difficult to escape or if you don’t feel comfortable hearing conflicting opinions, you could always do what they did in the study above: ask an LLM to debate one of your core beliefs with you. If you’re not convinced by the counterarguments, you might leave with stronger support for your own belief. If you hear new, convincing arguments, you might leave with a more nuanced view of your own belief instead. In any case, it’ll be an interesting conversation that provides alternative perspectives.

“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that”

~ John Stuart Mill