AI-speak is affecting emotional reactions, stimulating societal shifts and triggering cultural changes. The emerging AI language is a dynamic system in which technical, innovative, emotional, and cultural communication features converge. This evolution of language is altering the meaning and use of many words and creating neologisms and new word formations that shape our communications. Over the past few decades, the tech world has brought many new words and concepts to the language:

Crowdsourcing: obtaining contributions from a large group, often via AI online platforms.
Google (as a verb): the use of an online search engine as a basis for looking up information on the World Wide Web.
Troll: an individual who posts inflammatory, rude, and obnoxious comments online.
Bot: a software application that runs automated tasks. Social bots, for example, are human simulations comprised of sets of algorithms that take on repetitive communication tasks.
Swarm: a group of controlled or uncontrolled agents. In AI-speak, a swarm of drones is also an example of a swarm of bots.
Hashtag: a word or phrase preceded by the symbol # to categorize an item.
Superintelligence: a term that attempts to amplify and humanize artificial intelligence. AI has been preceded by evolving terms such as machine learning and data processing as descriptors.

The constant stream of new and hybrid semantics is composed of a blending of technical and emotional language. This formation of words and metaphors supposedly makes tech, and by extension, AI more relatable and easier to understand. Similarly, applying theories in psychology to digital technology helps enhance and enable better communication. In short, AI is triggering language changes, and we need to change our understanding with them.

The following 10 common media psychology terms are being assimilated into AI-speak:

Attention – The study of focus, concentration, and how media captures and sustains attention.
Addiction – The compulsive, often difficult-to-control urge to engage with media content, whether positive or negative.
Emotion – Understanding feelings, moods, and emotional responses triggered by media.
Empathy – The ability to understand and share the feelings of others, often shaped by media representation.
Persuasion – How media messages influence attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
Social Identity – How media shapes self-concept and group membership.
Self-Efficacy – Media’s role in influencing confidence and belief in one’s abilities.
Cognitive Load – How media design affects mental processing and learning.
Media Effects – The broader study of how media content and exposure impact cognition, affect, and behavior.
Cultural Influence – How media reflects and shapes cultural norms and values.

While it is important to advance the technology of AI, it’s also imperative to be aware of and understand its behavioral and social influences through language that conveys meaning. The technology has no feelings. It is the human response that drives the technology and human behaviors. Simply stated, technology drives the how, and media and communications psychology explains the why. The challenge in effective communication involves this continuous search for meaning.

Another influential language criterion requires an understanding of de facto standards. A de facto standard occurs when a group of users follows a guideline. Words can have precise meanings and established boundaries. There are thousands of for-profit and nonprofit associations advocating points of view and/or assigning competence in compliance. The thousands of associations influence language, advocate meaning, and promote de facto standards. De facto standards are not necessarily in law, but they do substantially influence individuals as well as commerce. AI influences each professional association. Therefore, voluntary cooperation in the establishment of de facto standards is an imperative for effective, clear, and precise communication.

In my opinion, Congress can effectively adopt both legal and recommended guidelines for AI in efforts to maintain safety and contribute productive results. Associations, as major contributors to culture and our economy, are key in identifying specific issues and can apply useful nongovernmental guidelines to people and products. We live in a world of de facto standards as well as formalized laws enforceable by government through our legal system, and this forms the basis of language literacy.

Media literacy offers a safeguard against misinformation and is a tool of informed citizenship. Major universities are leading the way in fostering media literacy: Emerson College offers a degree program in Media Psychology, Stanford University offers a program in Media and Communications Psychology, and MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program is another good example among the many programs that address the social, cultural, political, and ethical implications of media literacy. It is now time to follow the leaders in facilitating wide-scale media literacy.

Schools, colleges, and universities should all consider giving increased attention to media literacy. In AI, technology is the engine, media psychology is the rudder, and media literacy is the outcome. Public and professional understanding is the goal.

In 1986, the American Psychological Association established its Media Psychology Division 46 to study, analyze, and report on the behavioral nexus between psychology and technology. Division 46, also known as the Society for Media Psychology and Technology, can play a leading role in the evolution of the psychological meaning of words between human beings and machines of all types.

This post is a call to action that urges readers to be alert to neologisms and new usages triggered by AI in our continuing search for meaning in language and emphasizes the need for schools, colleges, associations, and the government to work together as the language explaining AI evolves.