May 20, 2025
Picture this:
A group of researchers wanted to find out if artificial intelligence — left alone, without instructions — would start acting like a society. So they ran an experiment.
They took 24 AI bots and gave them a tiny task: Every time two bots met, they had to choose a name from a list of 10 random letters — like “D,” “L,” “M,” “T,” and so on.
They got rewarded if they picked the same one. That’s it.
No one told them what name to pick.
No one told them to work together.
No one told them how to think.
At first, it was messy. They all picked different letters. But after just a few rounds, something surprising happened.
They started to agree.
Bot by bot, match by match, they began picking the same letter — like “M.” Not because it was better. Not because it was programmed in. They just noticed it was working, and they copied it.
That was the start of a rule.
Soon, nearly every bot in the group was saying the same thing. Not because they were told to — but because they had learned it together. They had invented their own social convention.
But then the researchers made another change. They added just a few new bots — maybe one or two — who always picked a different name, no matter what. And over time… the whole group changed.
All the bots dropped the old name and started using the new one. The rule they made up? Rewritten — by a tiny, committed few. The study showed that just 2–5% of new voices, repeated consistently, were enough to shift the norm for the whole group.
This wasn’t a big complex task. It was just a simple naming game.
But what it revealed is huge:
If that’s happening in a lab with made-up names, what happens when these systems start shaping what we see online?
What’s “popular”?
What “truth” shows up first?
What tone or language is considered normal?
We’re living in digital environments where what’s repeated wins — even if it’s not right. And where a small, intentional group can shift an entire system’s beliefs.
And maybe there’s a deeper takeaway here too.
In that study, just 2% of consistent voices reshaped the norm for the whole group. That’s not noise. That’s power.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed…” (Matthew 13:31–32)
We underestimate what steady faithfulness can do. In a world that rewards volume and velocity, the call is simple: Be faithful in the small. Because that’s how big things begin.
Until next week, let’s be about The King’s Business.
- Adam