Converting Thoughts Into Currency

A potential marketplace—the 'intention economy'—would now involve the buying and selling of digital signals of intent to covertly influence everything from buying movie tickets to voting

- OUR CORRESPONDENT

For years, companies have made money by fighting for your attention. Every scroll, swipe, and click helped them figure out what held your focus. This created what experts call the attention economy. It changed everything from how news spreads to the way people spend.

But now, researchers say the internet is moving beyond that. Instead of just grabbing your attention, companies want to know what you're planning. Not just what you want, but what you're about to want. They want to understand and even shape your decisions before you make them.

At the center of this shift are large language models or LLMs. These are the brains behind chatbots and digital assistants. They're trained on huge amounts of information and can sound very human. You've probably already chatted with one, whether through customer service or a virtual tutor.

These AI systems don't just understand language. They study how you speak, what you ask, and even how you respond to flattery. By doing this, they can guess what you're thinking. And with more conversations, they get even better at knowing what you want—or what you might want soon.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge claim that Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools could soon be used to manipulate the masses into making decisions that they otherwise would not. The study introduces the concept of an "intention economy", a marketplace where AI can predict, understand, and manipulate human intentions for profit.

Powered by LLMs, AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and other chatbots, will "anticipate and steer" users based on "intentional, behavioral and psychological data".

"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," the research stated.