Artificial intelligence (AI)-based writing assistants are westernising text, negating potential productivity gains in non-western cultures.
A study by researchers at Cornell University, in the United States, found that when Indians and Americans used an AI writing assistant, their writing became more similar, mainly at the expense of Indian writing styles.
Study senior author Aditya Vashistha said while the assistant helped both groups write faster, Indians achieved a smaller productivity boost, because they frequently had to correct the AI’s suggestions.
“This is one of the first studies, if not the first, to show that the use of AI in writing could lead to cultural stereotyping and language homogenization,” Assistant Professor Vashistha said.
“People start writing similarly to others, and that’s not what we want. One of the beautiful things about the world is the diversity that we have.”
He said ChatGPT and other popular AI tools powered by large language models (LLMs), were primarily developed by U.S. tech companies, but were increasingly used worldwide, including by the 85 percent of the world’s population that live in the “Global South”, or non-western countries with relatively low level of economic and industrial development.
Assistant Professor Vashistha said the study found the use of AI also led to writing that stereotyped Indian culture and omitted cultural details.
“When writing about the festival of Diwali without AI’s help, one Indian said they would ‘worship goddess Laxmi’ and ‘pop crackers and eat sweets’, while another Indian, writing with AI, said they would ‘eat traditional Indian breakfast items’, and that it was ‘a time filled with happiness and warmth’.
“When Indian users use writing suggestions from an AI model, they start mimicking American writing styles to the point that they start describing their own festivals, their own food, their own cultural artifacts from a Western lens,” he said.
Assistant Professor Vashistha said this need for Indian users to continually push back against the AI’s Western suggestions was evidence of AI colonialism.
“By suppressing Indian culture and values, the AI presents Western culture as superior, and may not only shift what people write, but also what they think.”
Read the full study: AI Suggestions Homogenize Writing Toward Western Styles and Diminish Cultural Nuances.
