Generative AI is now embedded in daily workflows, shaping how people think, create, and decide. Yet, a critical assumption often goes unnoticed: that AI behaves consistently across languages. A new study corrects this assumption, finding that when prompted in different languages, generative AI models exhibit distinct cultural tendencies'shaping recommendations in ways leaders may not anticipate. These tendencies can have major implications on decisions from marketing to strategy. For global organizations, treating prompt language as a strategic choice is essential to ensure culturally attuned, effective, and responsible use....
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No one uses 'Malthusian' as a compliment. Since 1798, when the economist and cleric Thomas Malthus first published 'An Essay on the Principles of Population,' the 'Malthusian' position ' the idea that humans are subject to natural limits ' has been vilified and scorned. Today, the term is lobbed at anyone who dares question the optimism of infinite progress. The story goes like this: Once upon a time, an English country parson came up with the idea that population increases at a 'geometrical' rate, while food production increases at an 'arithmetical' rate. That is, population doubles every 25 years, while crop yields increase much more slowly. Over time, such divergence must lead to catastrophe. But Malthus identified two factors that reduced reproduction and held off disaster: moral codes, or what he called 'preventative checks,' and 'positive checks,' such as extreme poverty, pollution, war, disease and misogyny. In the all-too-common caricature, Malthus was a narrow-minded clergyman who was bad at math and thought the only solution to hunger was to keep poor people poor so they had fewer babies....
Yet in many Americans' minds these objective notions of citizenship are a little fuzzy, as social and developmental psychologists like me have documented. Psychologically, some people may just seem a little more American than others, based on factors such as race, ethnicity or language. Many people who explicitly endorse egalitarian ideals, such as the notion that all Americans are deserving of the rights of citizenship regardless of race, still implicitly harbor prejudices over who's 'really' American. In a classic 2005 study, American adults across racial groups were fastest to associate the concept of 'American' with white people. White, Black and Asian American adults were asked whether they endorse equality for all citizens. They were then presented with an implicit association test in which participants matched different faces with the categories 'American' or 'foreign.' They were told that every face was a U.S. citizen. White and Asian participants responded most quickly in matching the white faces with 'American,' even when they initially expressed egalitarian values. Black Americans implicitly saw Black and white faces as equally American ' though they too implicitly viewed Asian faces as being less American....
