‘Large A.I. Models Are Cultural and Social Technologies’ ⇥ henryfarrell.net

Henry Farrell, Alison Gopnik, Cosma Shalizi, and James Evans, in an article for Science, as published on Farrell’s website because good academics are aware of how restrictive a paywalled journal can be:

Our central point here is not just that these technological innovations, like all other innovations, will have cultural and social consequences. Rather we argue that Large Models are themselves best understood as a particular type of cultural and social technology. They are analogous to such past technologies as writing, print, markets, bureaucracies, and representative democracies. Then we can ask the separate question about what the effects of these systems will be. New technologies that aren’t themselves cultural or social, such as steam and electricity, can have cultural effects. Genuinely new cultural technologies, Wikipedia for example, may have limited effects. However, many past cultural and social technologies also had profound, transformative effects on societies, for good and ill, and this is likely to be true for Large Models.

Some of the questions and discussions in this paper will be familiar. This framing, however, is unique and seems particularly thoughtful.