One of the greatest dangers of a future AI-centric world is the depersonalization of humanity, where human beings are deprived of the experiences they are adapted to and designed for. It is my strong belief that the farther we move toward impersonalization, the greater the psychological damage to the human race. That evidence of that damage will be reflected in societal disruption and violence.
Even now, before AI gets going, we see civil collapse in Europe. The EU is continuing its quixotic attempt to turn Europe into a 1984-style authoritarian political system, using AI as its engine. Their globalist policies, including censorship, unlimited immigration, and climate initiatives, have destroyed the economies of the major players and isolated the public from participation. Birthrates in Europe have fallen precipitously, foretelling a loss of national identity in a generation or two.
Now that AI implementations are accelerating, things will get worse.
Psychologists have defined the set of experiences that stimulate human beings and contribute to their well-being. Some are already affecting our society, independent of AI.
Deep Human connection, often ranked as the most enduring and profound source of pleasure. Loving and being loved, Secure attachment (romantic partners, children, close friends), feeling truly understood or accepted, shared joy (laughing together, celebrating).
Why it’s powerful: Activates oxytocin, dopamine, and endogenous opioids simultaneously—bonding and reward systems together. It also reduces stress and increases longevity.
Technology and left ideology have impacted this category even before AI. Computers and cell phones have enslaved the younger generations into an electronic reality, replacing normal human relationships. Identity politics radicals have attacked white men, destroying their self-esteem and desire for dating and social relationships. Economic uncertainty (including AI job-loss worries) has lowered the birth rate. Shared joy is missing from a generation of isolated individuals who have seen AI automation replace human interaction.
Purpose, Meaning, and Contribution, Pleasure is tied to why you do something, not just how it feels, helping others, raising children, creating something that outlasts you, living in alignment with values, and spiritual or moral fulfillment.
Why it’s powerful: Meaning activates reward circuits more slowly but lasts longer than sensory pleasure and is less prone to diminishing returns.
Although helping others remains a widespread human behavior, other related experiences are in decline. Fewer children removes that pleasure from people’s lives. Our spiritual and moral fulfillment is weakened in this age of anti-religion and nihilism? If there is no truth or honor, all behaviors, even the worst, are permitted.
Flow and Mastery are states where effort and skill perfectly match the challenge. Creative work (writing, music, art), sports and physical skill, problem-solving, and deep intellectual engagement
Why it’s powerful: Produces intense dopamine without the crash. Time distortion (“losing yourself”) is common.
Creativity, as a career, is being destroyed by AI, which now generates art and music. Creators are being replaced because they are too expensive, but AI-generated art and music are boring and impersonal. Perhaps sports will endure as a means of human entertainment. Most importantly, AI is replacing problem-solving and deep intellectual engagement.
Sexual and Romantic Pleasure, among the strongest short-term pleasures, is especially strong when emotionally bonded, such as in sexual intimacy, romantic passion, desire, and mutual attraction.
Why it’s powerful: combines primal reward, bonding hormones, novelty, and emotional validation. Pleasure is amplified when trust and intimacy are present.
Sexual drive will remain the strongest human motivation, but the form it takes may become sub-human. Will robots replace human partners? Will humans fall in love with machines? Relationships with compliant robots are the lazy way out of communicating with other human beings. We are designed to build relationships with others through communication and by establishing common ground, not use machines as slaves.
Aesthetic and Transcendent Experiences. Moments that feel “bigger than the self,” music that moves you, natural beauty, art, poetry, architecture, religious or mystical experiences, we (standing under a vast sky, witnessing greatness)
Why it’s powerful: Awe quiets self-focus and activates brain networks for meaning-making.
All transcendent experiences may be automated and presented to human beings on a two-dimensional screen, thereby removing their immersive quality. Will humans allow this to happen?
Given the dangers of AI, what is the human motivation for developing this technology without a care about its impact on human society?
Advances in technology are driven by two powerful forces: the human desire to exert control over the world and greed. The Enlightenment drove the advent of technology when man realized he could use science to control the world. All technologies created before World War II, even when they were powerful, were not lethal to the human race.
That understanding changed when atomic weapons were developed. Dropping the bombs on Japan forced mankind to realize how dangerous their inventions could be. Now, we have new 21st-century weapons of mass destruction. COVID was introduced to the world in 2019 as a biological weapon with lethal capabilities. The experience of the pandemic should give us pause as we move forward with genetic manipulation.
Now, AI has become the newest weapon to threaten humanity.
No one listens to philosophers these days, but they would be the ones who could clarify the moral issues arising from future AI developments. Without them, there is no entity with enough influence to question the direction of AI or place guardrails on it. Congress is currently debating the issue, but we can be sure nothing will be done to restrain AI, because the greed of capitalist profits has already corrupted our representatives.
The limits of AI development are only bounded by the amount of money billionaires are willing to risk in the hope of a big return. As long as their investment returns are substantial, money will continue to pour in.
Then, when the AI revolution reaches its peak, the billionaires will move on to their next opportunity, leaving the American people alienated from their humanity, which may be lost forever.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
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Superb framing of how AI erodes the expriences that make us human. The point about flow states and mastery being replaced is partciularly sharp - when problem-solving itself gets automated, we lose the very activity that shapes cognitive development. I worked in design automation and saw this firsthand: junior designers never developed intuition because software solved problems before they could struggle with them. The comparison to atomic weapons is apt, but unlike nukes, AI's threat isn't dramatic, it's gradual psychological atrophy.
I have to believe that at some point our psyches will simply discard it all because we'll instinctively grow weary of the artifice. We didn't evolve over millennia to consume this much information, operate at this speed, or intake so much fake content. Eventually we will probably regress to the mean, which will look like, broadly, unplugging from it all and going back to analog in many forms and fashions.