Social Norms Evolve

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — whose work helped propel artificial intelligence — stressed in an Associated Press interview Tuesday that society needs to change with the advent of AI, arguing that a fuller embrace of the technology would improve people’s lives.

“We need to create new social norms,” Huang said in an interview. “I would advocate that everybody use AI. Just go engage it.”

I don’t know what social norms Hr. Huang wants created, he doesn’t say, and I probably wouldn’t like any of them…

But, the problem is that social norms are not creations, like applications made from code. Social norms emerge and evolve in a complex manner as humans interact with each other and the world around us. As we learn new ideas, experience new cultures, adopt new technologies and methods… and have technologies forced on us.

That AI has been intrusively forced into our lives has already caused one issue, a breakdown of trust. As AI outputs are constantly shown to be incorrect, whether through intent, design or “hallucination” it further erodes the trust we place in the information we consume. As I argued in that post, trust is the social glue that allows society to function. Trusting each other implicitly is a social norm that evolved over time. And that social norm is being changed into one of “less trust.”

Professor Jeff Sharlet posted a thread on BlueSky, showing an evolving norm in the youth currently in higher education. I quote some excerpts here:

At the end of the term I asked my college creative writing students to submit anonymous thoughts on AI. No real surprises: Mood ranges from resignation to despair, capitulation from embittered erosion of standards to total, feelings of betrayal from deep to furious.

I wish I could tell you the responses thrummed with defiance. Instead, some read like substance abuse testimonies. A student whose use of AI grew until AI “wrote” all assignments sophomore fall. Got caught. Crushed by shame. Swore it off. But it’s creeping back, & they don’t know how to stop.

Nobody used the term “arms race,” but that’s what they’re describing: enormous pressure, including from some professors, to use AI or fall behind those who are. Many say they hate it, don’t want to use it, but they feel like now it’s submit or fail.

Another student wrote with deep fury about AI taking over their education and wrecking mental health. They used to not touch it. Now, they use it to “supplement” their work in econ & math classes. They feel betrayed by the college and their teachers and themselves.

Several students wrote of the moral confusion implicit in a college that promotes AI and says don’t cheat but makes it really, really easy to cheat. One said they don’t pay attention to AI policies because they don’t think the college really wants to know what’s going on.

This describes an entire generation of humanity losing faith in their own agency. The feeling that nothing one does matters, all choices are bad, all you can do is try to survive. Nihilism as a social norm.

Social norms are already evolving because of AI. We’re losing faith and trust in each other, the institutions around us, and in ourselves.

That’s the society you are helping to create Jensen Huang. I hope you are proud of yourself.