Part of what makes us human are the unique ways we think and solve problems. But using large-scale language models like ChatGPT could destroy this uniqueness and lead people to think and communicate in the same way, according to a team of scientists and psychologists who co-authored a new opinion paper.
“People differ in the way they write, think, and view the world,” said Zhivar Sourati, a computer scientist at the University of Southern California and first author of the paper, in a statement.
“When these differences are resolved by the same LLMs, their different language style, their perspective and thinking techniques are combined, producing expressions and thoughts that are balanced for all users,” continued Sourati.
The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, examines how hundreds of millions of people around the world use a few chatbots and what that means for our personalities.
Thinking inside the box
Pew Research found that one-third of all Americans used ChatGPT last year, doubling the figure by 2023. And chatbot use is more common among young people: Two-thirds say they use chatbots, and almost a third use them every day.
Businesses are also getting into all the artificial intelligence. Stanford found that 78% of organizations reported using AI by 2024, up from 55% by 2023.
So we use AI a lot. But the danger is that we can lose diversity in the ways we think. The team points out that LLMs produce writing that is slightly different than what people come up with on their own.
Part of the reason that LLMs may be pushing the same thought process, according to the paper’s authors, is the data used to train them.
“Because LLMs are trained to capture and reproduce general statistics in their training data, which often represent dominant languages and ideas, their results often reflect a small and distorted slice of the human experience,” Sourati said.
Why diversity thinking is important
There is a good reason why the authors caution against this practice. Homogenized thought undermines pluralism, which is the idea that many ideas are good for society as a whole.
“This importance of diversity is based on the long-standing principle that sound judgment requires exposure to diverse perspectives,” the authors wrote in the paper. “Unchecked, this homogenization risks flattening the cognitive landscape that drives collective intelligence and adaptation,”
So we use different ways of thinking to find more solutions to the problem. If we lose the ability to think and communicate differently, it can affect how we adapt to new situations.
“The concern is not only that LLMs shape the way people write or speak, but that they redefine what is important as honest speech, positive opinion, or good thinking,” Sourati said.
The authors also say that this trend affects even people who do not use chatbots.
“If a lot of people around me think and talk a certain way, and I do things differently, I can feel pressure to conform to them, because it seems to be a reliable or socially acceptable way to express my views,” said Sourati.
