Persuasion in debate · Contested (since 2025)

A preregistered study of 900 US participants in Nature Human Behaviour finds GPT-4, given basic demographic facts about its opponent, more persuasive than a human debater in 64 percent of comparable pairs.

The debates were short, online, on assigned topics, against strangers paid to take part; the effect was driven by personalization and was not statistically distinguishable from human performance without it. That is a real capability, and it is the reason the finding is treated as a warning rather than a milestone. What persuasion means between people who know each other, over time, with reputations at stake, is not what was measured; and being persuaded by someone who can be held to what they said is a different act from being moved by text.