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  • Perspective
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Machine culture

Nature Human Behaviour volume 7, pages 1855–1868 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

The ability of humans to create and disseminate culture is often credited as the single most important factor of our success as a species. In this Perspective, we explore the notion of ‘machine culture’, culture mediated or generated by machines. We argue that intelligent machines simultaneously transform the cultural evolutionary processes of variation, transmission and selection. Recommender algorithms are altering social learning dynamics. Chatbots are forming a new mode of cultural transmission, serving as cultural models. Furthermore, intelligent machines are evolving as contributors in generating cultural traits—from game strategies and visual art to scientific results. We provide a conceptual framework for studying the present and anticipated future impact of machines on cultural evolution, and present a research agenda for the study of machine culture.

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Fig. 1: Examples of machine culture.
Fig. 2: Recombination of visual concepts.
Fig. 3: Go play before and after the introduction of AlphaGo.
Fig. 4: Exemplary instances of cultural rewiring.

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Acknowledgements

L.B. thanks M. Bakker for useful discussions. We thank B. Supriyatno for supporting the formatting of the manuscript. The conclusion was created by GPT-4 on the basis of a summary (also created by GPT-4) of this manuscript with minimal editing to align nomenclature. J.-F.B. and M.D. acknowledge IAST funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR) under grant no. ANR-17-EURE-0010 (Investissements d’Avenir programme).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Levin Brinkmann, Fabian Baumann, Jean-François Bonnefon, Maxime Derex, Thomas F. Müller, Anne-Marie Nussberger, Iyad Rahwan.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Humans and Machines, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

    Levin Brinkmann, Fabian Baumann, Thomas F. Müller, Anne-Marie Nussberger, Agnieszka Czaplicka & Iyad Rahwan

  2. Toulouse School of Economics, Toulouse, France

    Jean-François Bonnefon & Maxime Derex

  3. Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, Toulouse, France

    Maxime Derex

  4. Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Alberto Acerbi

  5. Department of Psychology and Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Thomas L. Griffiths

  6. Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Joseph Henrich

  7. DeepMind Technologies Ltd, London, UK

    Joel Z. Leibo

  8. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

    Richard McElreath

  9. Inria, Flowers team, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France

    Pierre-Yves Oudeyer

  10. Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Jonathan Stray

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Contributions

Conception: L.B. and I.R. Manuscript preparation: L.B., F.B., J.-F.B., M.D., T.F.M., A.-M.N. and I.R. Critical review, commentary or revision: A.C., A.A., T.L.G., J.H., J.Z.L., R.M., P.-Y.O. and J.S. Supervision: I.R.

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Brinkmann, L., Baumann, F., Bonnefon, JF. et al. Machine culture. Nat Hum Behav 7, 1855–1868 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01742-2

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