AI assistants could be used to forecast and influence the future decisions of the consumers that use them, with those ‘intentions’ later sold on to third-party companies, researchers have said.
A team of AI ethicists from the University of Cambridge say the tech sector is at the beginning of a “lucrative yet troubling new marketplace for digital signals of intent”, which would include actions such as buying tickets to see films or voting for political candidates.
In the future, AI agents including chatbot assistants, or even digital tutors and girlfriends, will have access to vast quantities of intimate psychological and behavioural data gleaned from their conversations.
It could then use this data, alongside knowledge of online habits, to build levels of trust and understanding that allow for “social manipulation on an industrial scale”, the researchers claim.
“Tremendous resources are being expended to position AI assistants in every area of life, which should raise the question of whose...