AI persuading AI vs AI persuading Humans: LLMs' Differential Effectiveness in Promoting Pro-Environmental Behavior

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Hauptverfasser: Doudkin, Alexander, Pataranutaporn, Pat, Maes, Pattie
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Doudkin, Alexander
Pataranutaporn, Pat
Maes, Pattie
author_facet Doudkin, Alexander
Pataranutaporn, Pat
Maes, Pattie
contents Pro-environmental behavior (PEB) is vital to combat climate change, yet turning awareness into intention and action remains elusive. We explore large language models (LLMs) as tools to promote PEB, comparing their impact across 3,200 participants: real humans (n=1,200), simulated humans based on actual participant data (n=1,200), and fully synthetic personas (n=1,200). All three participant groups faced personalized or standard chatbots, or static statements, employing four persuasion strategies (moral foundations, future self-continuity, action orientation, or "freestyle" chosen by the LLM). Results reveal a "synthetic persuasion paradox": synthetic and simulated agents significantly affect their post-intervention PEB stance, while human responses barely shift. Simulated participants better approximate human trends but still overestimate effects. This disconnect underscores LLM's potential for pre-evaluating PEB interventions but warns of its limits in predicting real-world behavior. We call for refined synthetic modeling and sustained and extended human trials to align conversational AI's promise with tangible sustainability outcomes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_02067
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AI persuading AI vs AI persuading Humans: LLMs' Differential Effectiveness in Promoting Pro-Environmental Behavior
Doudkin, Alexander
Pataranutaporn, Pat
Maes, Pattie
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
Pro-environmental behavior (PEB) is vital to combat climate change, yet turning awareness into intention and action remains elusive. We explore large language models (LLMs) as tools to promote PEB, comparing their impact across 3,200 participants: real humans (n=1,200), simulated humans based on actual participant data (n=1,200), and fully synthetic personas (n=1,200). All three participant groups faced personalized or standard chatbots, or static statements, employing four persuasion strategies (moral foundations, future self-continuity, action orientation, or "freestyle" chosen by the LLM). Results reveal a "synthetic persuasion paradox": synthetic and simulated agents significantly affect their post-intervention PEB stance, while human responses barely shift. Simulated participants better approximate human trends but still overestimate effects. This disconnect underscores LLM's potential for pre-evaluating PEB interventions but warns of its limits in predicting real-world behavior. We call for refined synthetic modeling and sustained and extended human trials to align conversational AI's promise with tangible sustainability outcomes.
title AI persuading AI vs AI persuading Humans: LLMs' Differential Effectiveness in Promoting Pro-Environmental Behavior
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.02067