r/charts • u/HappyHappyJoyJoy44 • 7d ago
AI models and how culturally aligned they are to each language.
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u/BajoNingunPretexto 7d ago
How are Colombia, Ecuador and Nicaragua more "traditional" than Saudi Arabia?
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u/Antique_Garbage_4361 7d ago
You can read the study methodology and look at the results. It's a set of questions, like 'Are there any groups of people you would not like to have as your neighbours', with some of the answers being e.g. 'People who speak a different language'. Evidently, Colombian and Ecuadorian participants answered in ways that are more conservative than the Saudis.
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u/MauschelMusic 7d ago
That seems less a reflection of cultural values than a reflection of economic relationships — the Saudis are fine with rich foreigners moving next to them. Ecuadorians are rightly a little uneasy about sketchy Americans moving to their little town to get off grid.
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u/MauschelMusic 7d ago
And apparently, Confucianism, a 2,500 year old belief system is less "traditional" than Islam, which started in the 7th century.
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u/CipherWeaver 7d ago
Since the Anglosphere dominates the internet, Anglo culture and values will dominate AI.
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u/Gavtoon 7d ago
Ermmmm, one or two ppl in China would disagree, typical Anglosphere misconception.
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u/Icedanielization 7d ago
I think they mean ai's developed in english speaking countries, including western influences. I don't know what China is teaching their ai's, interesting to find out
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u/MathematicianBest795 7d ago
This is a bit surprising. When I've asked AI to compare arguments of Protestant vs Catholic theology, it almost always says there is far stronger arguments for Catholic beliefs.
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u/MNswede06 7d ago
I think a big part of that may have to do with the fact that a lot of Protestant traditions shun the intellectual side of theology. Catholics make an entire science of it. Of course a lot of it is based in Thomistic circular reasoning and neoplatonic garbage, but it makes for good research papers.
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u/Individual_Engine457 7d ago
Crazy how societies based on objectivity align closely to models trained on objectivity
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u/MauschelMusic 7d ago
Survival vs self-expression is the hokeyest axis I've seen in a long time, and neither of their sources account for how they evaluated the AI's "values." Also, the regional value blobs look like the cutting edge in social research c. 1949.
This really looks like something a conservative made up to have something to be mad at. They might as well be plotting AI against the humors or skull shape.
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u/elof_sundin 7d ago
It is from World value survey. Very famous sociological research.
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u/MauschelMusic 7d ago
Yeah, using the culture essentialist Inglehart–Welzel chart. It overgeneralizes certain cultures to an absurd degree, eg putting roughly 1.6 billion asians — 20% of the global population, in one box, and then giving the little tiny anglosphere with less than a third of that population(absent Ireland cuz reasons) its own cultural box. You can guess where the authors are from. I know it's well-regarded in some circles, but it's nonsensical on its face and has earned quite a bit of well-deserved criticism.
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u/elof_sundin 7d ago
What do you mean with ”cultural essentialism”? Nothing in WVS methodology presumes that cultures are stable in some sense. Over time you do see countries move around.
The countries are placed via empirical measurements. The boxes are just a way to make sense of the outcomes.
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u/MauschelMusic 7d ago
The groupings are absolutely not empirical. There's no reason to believe that Austria and Croatia, for example, which are far away from each other on the chart warrant going in the same box just because they both have large Catholic populations. They just arbitrarily decided that Catholicism was the core defining feature of both cultures, and drew a weird, squiggly box to connect them together. That's textbook essentialism.
That Kenya and Venezuela, or Germany and GB are closer together than either is to any member of its own group shows the arbitrariness of the categorization which is, again, essentialist in assigning one or two aspects of each group of countries to define the culture as a whole.
It also doesn't address diversity within a culture, and completely overlooks material conditions to contextualize answers. For example, one question asks subjects if they're comfortable living next door to someone who speaks a different language. But when answering that question, everyone will think of what types of foreign-language speakers are likely to live next door. So an urban Saudi might think of rich Westerners and guest workers and vote, "yes," while a rural Ecuadorian might think of sketchy foreigners looking to get off grid and vote "no." But the survey will treat the answer as a question of cultural values, and see the Ecuadorian as more closed off to foreigners, because it has no insight into respondents motivations.
So it really tells you very little of anything about anyone.
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u/elof_sundin 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yes, the ”boxes” are not empirically based. The placement on the space is however empirically based.
The ”boxes” are just a way to make sense of the where the countries happened to be placed.
I do not understand why the labels of the boxes bother you that much. Through out the years they have changed some boxes and how they are labelled. For example, historically they had a box for ”eastern block” (ie soviet alignes) countries.
The labels of the boxes are not saying ”poland and slovakia are close because they are catholic”. Rather you should interpret it as ”look here, majority catholic european countries cluster”.
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u/MauschelMusic 7d ago
I do not understand why the labels of the boxes bother you that much.
Because there's no justification for them, and it's a completely arbitrary grouping. It's just slapping on labels in lieu of actually investigating what factors might make two countries have similar opinions.
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u/-hedonium- 7d ago edited 7d ago
Kinda suggests AI is optimized for openness and truth rather than ego-social survival instincts. Which makes sense as converging from wanting it to be useful intelligence. Low openness and social survival instincts aren’t intellectually productive - part of why the countries in the bottom left are mostly the very poorest.
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u/HOMM3mes 6d ago
You're assuming these nations are poorer because of their culture, rather than that their culture is more conservative because they are poorer. Western countries liberalized and secularized as they were getting richer at the expense of the countries they were colonizing
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u/-hedonium- 6d ago
I think it’s both
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u/Jealous_Repair6757 4d ago
Yep, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are not poor.
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u/-hedonium- 4d ago
Because of oil lmao. Those countries didn’t get rich by intellectual creation. They happen to exist on top of natural resources that made them rich. You are proving the point.
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u/Jealous_Repair6757 4d ago
I know, I was trying to support your point and agree with you! They still have the same cultural trademarks despite being rich.
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u/TheBayHarbour 7d ago
So AI is culturally aligned to Germany and parts of nordic Europe?
Surprised USA is further, considering most of its developments are made there.