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A free US government hub (IMLS) with guides and toolkits for finding, understanding, evaluating and sharing information — built for libraries, classrooms and home use.
Why I recommend it: Solid, non-commercial material for spotting misinformation and AI-generated content; aimed at librarians but usable by anyone.
Science's news report by Kai Kupferschmidt on Kobi Hackenburg's research into how large language models persuade people. The finding that matters: chatbots change minds mainly by flooding a conversation with facts, figures and evidence at a speed no human debater can match — not by charm or by tailoring the argument to who you are. Researchers quoted include Gordon Pennycook ("Facts and evidence really matter") and Sander van der Linden, who calls AI persuasion "a whole new field that is emerging". The uncomfortable part: in an earlier Science paper, Hackenburg found models trained to be more persuasive also became less truthful, so some of the evidence being thrown at you can be wrong or invented.
Why I recommend it: Read this before your next long back-and-forth with a chatbot about a decision. The practical takeaway is a habit: when an AI answer wins you over because it listed ten supporting facts, check two of them at random before you act on it — persuasiveness and accuracy are trained separately, and the research says pushing one down can push the other. Two honest notes: this is Science's news section reporting a study, so read the paper itself before quoting a figure in writing, and Science blocks automated access, so I could not load the page myself to confirm it is still open to read — the news section is normally free, but if it asks you to sign in, tell me and I will pull the entry.
