⏳ The belief that "people used to be more moral" can fade after just 22 minutes talking to an AI that only knows text written before 1930. Title: Time Machine Experiments: Using Historically-Bounded AI for Inquiry into the Human Mind URL: 🧠 Overview This study tests whether the "illusion of moral decline" — the bias that past societies were more moral than today's — can be reduced by talking with Talkie, an AI trained only on pre-1930 text. 🎯 The problem it solves Archives can't answer new questions, and living witnesses have their memories distorted by knowledge of what came after. Until now there was no way to actually experience a "raw" historical perspective. 🛠 Method Instead of prompting a modern model to roleplay a historical persona (which leaks modern knowledge), the researchers used a model whose training data itself stops at 1930. 240 participants were randomly split between the 1930-AI and GPT-5.5 conditions and discussed morally contested sentence completions with their assigned model. 📊 Results The 100-year moral-decline score improved from -0.80 to +0.07 in the 1930-AI group (d=0.56), with almost no change in the control. Participants revised their view of the past downward rather than inflating the present, and also reported significantly deeper reflection. #BehavioralScience# #AIResearch#

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