Large AI Models Are Cultural and Social Technologies

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Authors: Henry Farrell, Alison Gopnik, Cosma Shalizi, James Evans
Venue: Science (peer-reviewed journal, Policy Forum)
Published: March 2025
ID: DOI 10.1126/science.adt9819

How to cite it

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APA

Farrell, H., Gopnik, A., Shalizi, C., & Evans, J. (2025). Large AI Models Are Cultural and Social Technologies. Science (peer-reviewed journal, Policy Forum). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adt9819

MLA

Farrell, Henry, et al. "Large AI Models Are Cultural and Social Technologies." Science (peer-reviewed journal, Policy Forum), 2025, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adt9819.

BibTeX

@article{farrell2025large,
  title = {Large AI Models Are Cultural and Social Technologies},
  author = {Henry Farrell and Alison Gopnik and Cosma Shalizi and James Evans},
  journal = {Science (peer-reviewed journal, Policy Forum)},
  year = {2025},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adt9819},
}

What it is

A Science Policy Forum paper arguing that large AI models are better understood as cultural and social technologies — like writing, printing and markets — than as autonomous intelligent agents, drawing on the history of earlier transformative information systems.

Topics

#ai #social-impact #research

Added Oct 2, 2026 · 0 opens