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Does Humanity Risk Losing Autonomy?: The Human Psyche and AI

Author: Jill Maschio, Phd
Opinion

Memories and Associations

Recall your childhood. The friends you played with, the family vacations, your favorite toys and TV show – perhaps Sesame Street. Those were the good days – not a care in the world, and the freedom to be a kid was the norm for many American children. Over the years, you dreamt about your future, a career, having a family, and purchasing a home. You thought about how to save money, what social media platforms to join, and what kind of cake to eat after dinner. Those were your free thoughts. Your experiences and encounters become associated in your mind, according to the work of Jean Piaget. If I say, “cat,” you say, “dog.” If I ask you to think of your favorite color, you can tell me because your mind has associated a specific color with your favorite. With the power to shape your behavior and decisions once triggered – you are partly the associations your mind forms. Your thoughts become your sense of self, the reality of life and the world, and you continue to be shaped by your thoughts throughout life. We learn to recognize that the world is full of choices, and you have the autonomy and the free will to decide what you want for your life.

The Crucial Importance of Understanding Our Psychological Needs and the Pursuit of Autonomy

People tend to have two psychological needs: to understand themselves better and to have a happy, prosperous life. These two needs come with the autonomy to make choices in one’s life. We think we are truly free because we can own things and make some decisions, but many choices have already been made for us. For example, Henry Ford was noted for saying that customers could choose any color of car they wanted as long as it was black. In other words, as the years go on, there are fewer and fewer free choices. For example, every time a new version of a cell phone is available, people “run” to their cellular carrier to purchase it. We didn’t get to choose what the new cell phone feature would be – it was made for the customer. Regardless, people feel that their decision will make them happier – satisfying some psychological need. But in reality, people conformed to society and “good” marketing, all while reducing true autonomy.

Our Autonomy in the Context of Societal Influences

In pursuing autonomy, we must recognize society’s influences on our thoughts and behavior. America is poisoned by societal immorality, greed, and the need for power, all of which negatively impact our autonomy. Freedom is an illusion to a degree. Societal influences often do not lead to a happy and healthy life – mentally, if we do not learn to recognize and control our own behavior for them. In Harvard Professor Sapolsky’s (2013) work, he learned from observing baboons for over 30 years that social rank dictates stress level and health. Low social rank males have high-stress levels when the alpha males are controlling and mean.  Low social-ranking males are less likely to be able to mate and have freedom compared to Alpha males.
To extrapolate Sapolsky’s work to humans, and from a psychological point of view, we live in a hostile psychological culture in America. People of low social rank – the everyday person going to work five days a week and trying to get ahead, are stressed out and at a higher risk for high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases. People work under bosses, education institutions, societal forces, and laws of the land that influence and control our thoughts and behaviors by deciding for people what they will hear, learn, and do. For example, educational institutions determine what children should be taught and what information should be in textbooks. Not that children should not learn to read and write, but some information taught in schools teaches children what to believe and do and the associations they form, so information must be accurate and truthful. If historical information is removed or replaced by false or politically motivated information – history has been altered in the mind of the learner.
Happiness is fleeting. Happiness is influenced by society, other people, and our thoughts and behavior. For example, if we think the job we applied for will make us happy, it will – at least momentarily. However, the urgency to achieve happiness while in the moment leaves a person feeling eager, which can easily lead to being overcome with emotions and instant gratification overrides common sense, morals, and one’s ability to foresee the consequences of one’s actions. The person makes a wrong decision as a result, and happiness flees. Another example is the need to feel belongingness. People can struggle to fit in with others, so they conform to what a group is doing for acceptance. People may feel a sense of belonging in the moment, but they may not stay true to who they are to do so. Ultimately, the person feels less connected to their sense of self.
Society teaches people that happiness is acquiring wealth and fame – the American dream – and culture can influence people’s minds on how to pursue the dream. However, happiness is complex and partly comes from the freedom to pursue our basic and psychological needs. AI may limit freedom. Consider Cognify – the prison of the future. A facility, that if implemented, would change the memories and brains of criminals so that they will experience greater empathy and remorse for their criminal actions. This kind of use of AI and advanced technology depletes humanity’s autonomy. I am not saying that people who commit crimes need not be reformed. The point here is the loss of autonomy. The brain is a complex organ that science does not fully understand. I am reminded of the early lobotomy – brought to the US by Walter Freeman. He took an ice pick and forced it into the brain through the eye to sever the connections in the frontal lobe of the brain. The procedure was used to treat mental illness and someone with overactive emotions. The patients suffered severe complications after having the procedure, including brain hemorrhage, epilepsy, personality changes, and even death. Is Cognify going to be the new lobotomy?

You will Own Nothing and be Happy – Loss of Autonomy

Abraham Maslow (1962) believed that happy people have learned how to cope and meet their psychological needs of self-esteem, love, belongingness, and self-actualization (becoming the person you were meant to be or do). This is not the same for everyone. Some people cannot cope with and meet their psychological needs. These people may resort to anger and immoral behavior because they see society blocking their ability to achieve their basic and psychological needs. Maslow believed that part of the problem of achieving happiness is that societies make the individual sick. When entities control the masses through societal influences, for example, genuine autonomy is lost because individuals arrive at thoughts, desires, and beliefs they may not have formed independently.
By having the autonomy to make decisions that are best for our lives, we experience psychological freedom. This idea conflicts with Klaus Schwab, CEO of the World Economic Forum. He suggests that we are now in the 4^th Industrial Revolution, where globalization will radically change economies. We master globalization in several ways, and social cohesion is one of them (Schwab, 2019). The organization wants several changes by 2030 –  one of which is where you own nothing, have no privacy, and be happy (Auken, 2016).  Their belief is far removed from reality, resembling the need for power that controls the human psyche rather than freeing it from societal and political influences and motives.

Disconnects and the Human Psyche

Psychologist Carl Jung (1964) stated that “the more consciousness is influenced by prejudices, errors, fantasies, and infantile wishes, the more the already existing gap will widen into a neurotic dissociation and lead to a more or less artificial life far removed from healthy instincts, nature, and truth (p. 34). The more people follow the powerful societal influences, whether consciously or unconsciously, the more their reality changes without recognizing the disconnect from independent thought – thus, the human psyche changes as a result.
Part of this disconnect from independent thought comes from how people live today.  People today live a much easier life than previous generations, in general. People worked physically demanding jobs. Today, many people work on computers and live a sedentary life. However, we have increased rates of people with depression and mental illness than previous generations – our psychological needs have not changed, but perhaps two particular factors play a role here: one, people today are not achieving psychological needs compared to previous generations – partly because technology has stolen much of our time that we would be giving to face-to-face relationship. There were more physically demanding jobs in the past, but they were not consumed with their technology. They had “real” relationships and a stronger family unit than today.
I remember being at South Padre Island a few years ago and spending the day at the sandy, sunny beach. A family set up their umbrellas and coolers next to us. It was a couple with two children. The father decided to play in the water with the children. The mother was too preoccupied with her cell phone. She missed out on creating family memories, and the children will reap the negative psychological consequences if the mother continually pays more attention to her cell phone than her children. Sadly, this behavior is all too common in America. Go to a restaurant and observe how families and couples are dining together, but they do little talking – they mostly look down at their cell phones.  Being on your cell phone is a social phenomenon because we are all influenced to carry our phones; we are conditioned to check our phones multiple times throughout the day, and we can feel distressed when we have not checked our phones in a while. This is called fear of missing out (FOMO), a term coined by McGinnis of Harvard University (McGinnis, n.d.). It is not just our cell phones; technology generally has so much of our attention.
Consider how much you use a form of technology in a given day. Social media platforms are mainstream, as a million people sign up daily for social media (Kepios, 2018). As a society, we rely on technology to help us book a vacation, to shop, for entertainment, education and information, news, finance investments, taxes, and so on. Yes, technology is an excellent tool in our lives, but we have allowed it to take hold of our everyday thoughts and behavior. For example, what is the first thing you think and do if you want to purchase a new vehicle? You think about how to get on the Internet and do research and comparison shop. What is the first thing you think or do if you want to send someone a birthday gift? You think of how you need to get on the Internet to look for a gift. In the past, if you thought about buying a gift for a friend, you called someone and met them at the local mall. As a society, we continually use technology to complete many day-to-day tasks. Psychologically, we are attached to technology. So, the second factor is that technology has changed how we think and what we do by instilling thoughts into our minds that we need it. Our behaviors have been conditioned in new ways with technology.

New Realities Under AI

Now that AI is rolling out onto the social stage, we must be cognizant of how it will change the human psyche. Specific possible changes are listed below.
One change to the human psyche is limiting psychological needs, such as the need for love. Today, the trend is to have an AI companion. Sure, people can argue that having an AI companion will benefit humanity and help those who are isolated or have low social skills. AI could help those people, but at what cost, I ask? If you want to read more about the risks of AI companions, you can read my article about that. I will not dive into that here.
Two, AI may change the human psyche by making people even more conditioned to technology and more isolated from friends and family (face-to-face contact with humans) than they already are. Erich Fromm (Boeree, n.d.)  believed that as we seek freedom and independence, we conform to society, losing what we seek – individuality and personal freedom. Maybe because we watch what other people are doing and unconsciously follow suit. We do not even realize that when deciding where to eat as a group, we unconsciously think of a place that has been marketed to us. People succumb to all the little subtle messages they see and read from the mass media, such as Facebook. That is the conditioned behavior that Fromm warned of us.
Third, AI may create a shared reality. A shared reality is when groups and the masses have common behaviors and beliefs. This can be positive or negative – it really depends on the shared belief and its outcomes. For example, if a shared reality is that humans should do more to protect a dying species, then people may act to benefit the species. However, when the shared reality is controlling or manipulative, negative behaviors may result in undesirable outcomes. How might AI contribute to this, you ask? It all depends on who is “feeding” the information to AI and what it contains.  For example, if educators decide to use a chatbot for a course about history, then the content the builder feeds to the AI must be unbiased, scientifically sound, and reliable. Suppose it is full of untruths, political biases, or agendas. In that case, the person feeding the chatbot controls what the learner knows as truth, which impacts the learner’s psyche and the mind of every person who uses the chatbot. This reminds me of the book The Adventures of Pinocchio; Pinocchio, a marionette puppet, tries to be a good son so that his father, Geppetto, can turn him into a real boy. Geppetto tries to direct Pinocchio’s behavior so that he will learn to be good. Pinocchio’s newly learned conditioned behavior paves a path for him – to be a real boy.

Seven Ways of Maintaining Autonomy in the AI Era

What can people do to preserve their autonomy in the AI era?

1. Be aware of the potential control and consequences that continual use of AI has on human thought and behavior.
2. Be cautious of the AI that you use. Research and know whether the AI is biased or has reliable information.
3. Learn to be independent; do not rely on AI to think for you.
4. Do not conform to the lure of AI used by society or marketing companies.
5. Know what is best for yourself.
6. Avoid falling into a shared reality with technology.
7. Be aware of what you feed your mind.

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References
Auken, I. (2016). Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better. World Economic Forum. https://web.archive.org/web/20161125135500/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/shopping-i-can-t-really-remember-what-that-is
Boeree, G. C. (n.d.) Personality theories: Erich Fromm. https://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/fromm.html
Christian G. (2013, January 18^th). Dr. Robert Sapolsky and the Keekorok Baboon troop [Video]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/4Q-bB-qywJ0?si=BpMDtw5VDC57itKK
Fromm, E. (1955). The present human condition. The American Scholar, 25(1), 29-35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41208052
Kepios. (2018, April 23). Social media use surges in early 2018 despite privacy fears. Kepios. https://kepios.com/blog/2018/4/23/social-media-use-surges-in-early-2018-despite-privacy-fears
Maslow, A. (1962). Toward a psychology of being (2^nd ed.). Van Nostrand Reinhold. https://doi.org/10.1037/10793-000
McGinnis, P. (n.d.). How to dump FOMO in 2018. Patrickmcginnis. https://patrickmcginnis.com/blog/how-to-dump-fomo-2018/
Schwab, K. (2019, June 5^th). Wait just a minute: Klaus Schwab [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuWzy9woghU

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