The ideas
THE INSTITUTE · VOCABULARY
The Institute works with a defined vocabulary. Each term exists because the ordinary word for the thing it names is too imprecise to think clearly with.
01
The Persuasion Asymmetry
The gap between those who design influence systems and those affected by them. The designers know the mechanism; the affected feel only the result. Almost every problem the Institute studies is a symptom of this one gap.
02
Synthetic Trust
Trust produced by systems built to simulate trustworthiness rather than earn it. When a synthesised face is rated more trustworthy than a real one, trust has been decoupled from the thing it was supposed to signal.
03
Cultural Truth
What a community accepts as true because it resonates with what the community already is, regardless of factual accuracy. Cultural truth explains why correcting a false belief so often fails: the belief was never load-bearing on the facts.
04
AI Belief Velocity
The speed at which conviction forms once artificial intelligence collapses the time between first exposure and settled belief. The danger isn't only what people come to believe, but how little time they spend uncertain on the way there.