AI's next frontier: Selling your intentions before you know them

The near future could see AI assistants that forecast and influence our decision-making at an early stage, and sell these developing "intentions" in real-time to companies that can meet the need—before we even realize we have made up our minds. This is according to AI ethicists from the University of Cambridge, who say we are at the dawn of a "lucrative yet troubling new marketplace for digital signals of intent," from buying movie tickets to voting for candidates. They call this the "intention economy." Researchers from Cambridge's Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence (LCFI) argue that the explosion in generative AI, and our increasing familiarity with chatbots, opens a new frontier of "persuasive technologies"—one hinted at in recent corporate announcements by tech giants. "Anthropomorphic" AI agents, from chatbot assistants to digital tutors and girlfriends, will have access to vast quantities of intimate psychological and behavioral data, often gleaned via informal, conversational spoken dialogue. This AI will combine knowledge of our online habits with an uncanny ability to attune to us in ways we find comforting—mimicking personalities and anticipating desired responses—to build levels of trust and understanding that allow for social manipulation on an industrial scale, say researchers.