Reducing belief in conspiracy theories as they unfold using large language models

Abstract

The emergence of conspiracy theories in the wake of major events is a significant societal challenge. Here we test whether conversational dialogues with a large language model (LLM) can reduce belief in immediately unfolding conspiracies. In experiments conducted in the days following the July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump and the September 2025 assassination of Charlie Kirk, U.S. adults (Experiment 1: N = 472; Experiment 2: N = 1042) holding conspiratorial views about the crisis event engaged in a multi-turn conversation with an LLM prompted to reduce their conspiracy belief. Compared to control participants who either discussed an irrelevant topic with an LLM or viewed a static fact sheet, participants in the LLM treatment showed significantly reduced conspiracy beliefs in both experiments. We also found some suggestive evidence of downstream effects of the LLM treatment, observing reduced belief in some -- but not all -- analyses of different conspiratorial beliefs one to two months later. These results shed light on the psychology of emerging conspiracies and highlight the potential for scalable, cognitively-focused interventions to counteract misinformation in the immediate aftermath of high-profile societal events.