---
type: source
title: "The homogenizing effect of large language models on human expression and thought"
author: "Zhivar Sourati, Morteza Dehghani et al. (@USC Dornsife)"
url: https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(26)00003-3
date: 2026-03-11
domain: ai-alignment
secondary_domains: [collective-intelligence, cultural-dynamics]
format: paper
status: unprocessed
priority: high
triage_tag: claim
tags: [ai-homogenization, cognitive-diversity, collective-intelligence, llm-effects, expression, thought]
flagged_for_clay: ["AI homogenization of expression connects to cultural dynamics — homogenized expression may reduce narrative diversity"]
---

## Content

Published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, March 2026. Opinion paper by USC computer scientists and psychologists.

**Core thesis:** AI chatbots are standardizing how people speak, write, and think. If unchecked, this homogenization reduces humanity's collective wisdom and adaptive capacity.

**Key findings cited:**
- LLM outputs show less variation than human writing
- Outputs reflect primarily Western, educated, industrialized perspectives
- Groups using LLMs generate FEWER and LESS CREATIVE ideas than those relying solely on collective thinking
- People's opinions SHIFT toward biased LLMs after interaction
- Distinct linguistic styles and reasoning strategies become homogenized, producing standardized expressions across users

**Homogenization mechanism (4 pathways):**
1. Users lose stylistic individuality when polishing text through chatbots
2. LLMs redefine what constitutes "credible speech" and "good reasoning"
3. Widespread adoption creates social pressure to conform ("If a lot of people around me are thinking and speaking in a certain way... I would feel pressure to align")
4. Training data feedback loops amplify homogenization over time

**Impact on collective intelligence:** "Within groups and societies, cognitive diversity bolsters creativity and problem-solving. If LLMs had more diverse ways of approaching ideas and problems, they would better support the collective intelligence and problem-solving capabilities of our societies."

**Recommendation:** AI developers should incorporate more real-world diversity into LLM training sets — grounded in actual global human diversity, not random variation.

## Agent Notes
**Triage:** [CLAIM] — "AI homogenization of human expression and thought reduces collective intelligence by eroding the cognitive diversity that problem-solving depends on" — from a leading cognitive science journal, 2026
**Why this matters:** Directly connects to our existing claim [[AI is collapsing the knowledge-producing communities it depends on]] but from a DIFFERENT MECHANISM. That claim is about economic displacement of knowledge workers. This is about cognitive homogenization EVEN AMONG people still producing knowledge. Same structural pattern (AI undermines its own inputs), different pathway.
**What surprised me:** The SOCIAL PRESSURE mechanism. Homogenization isn't just a technical artifact of LLM training — it's socially enforced. People conform to AI-standard expression because others do. This makes it harder to reverse than a purely technical problem.
**KB connections:** [[AI is collapsing the knowledge-producing communities it depends on]], [[collective intelligence requires diversity as a structural precondition not a moral preference]], [[pluralistic alignment must accommodate irreducibly diverse values simultaneously]]
**Extraction hints:** The 4-pathway mechanism and the social pressure finding are the novel contributions. The self-reinforcing nature (AI homogenizes → homogenized data trains next AI → further homogenization) is a feedback loop claim.

## Curator Notes
PRIMARY CONNECTION: AI is collapsing the knowledge-producing communities it depends on creating a self-undermining loop that collective intelligence can break
WHY ARCHIVED: Provides a SECOND mechanism for the self-undermining loop — not just economic displacement but cognitive homogenization. Published in a top-tier cognitive science journal in March 2026.
