Abstract
Maybe it’s not until we experience machines that we appreciate the human. The inhumane has not only given us an appetite for the human; it’s teaching us what it is.
—Brian Christian
Mainstream media like to paint things in black and white. Artificial intelligence (AI), its progress, and its impact are being painted in extremes of black and white. On one end, the benefits are highlighted as a utopia, and on the other end, their effect on jobs and the overall human race is painted as dystopian. In I, Human, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic swims through extreme noise and asks more fundamental questions. What does AI do to us as people, at a psychological level, right now? His thesis is simple but not simplistic. The most significant risk of AI is that it may outsmart, outthink and render humans less human.
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, in his two-hundred-page, eight-chapter, sleek volume published by Harvard Business Press, digs into the root of the problem and outlines a manifesto for reclaiming humanity. The book is an accessible read. Anyone curious about the impacts of AI on the workplace and humanity can breeze through it over the weekend and come out of mainstream media’s extreme black and white paintings. All the chapters begin with a quote and conclude with a self-administered questionnaire, assessing a specific aspect of AI’s impact on the psyche. It makes the book not only interactive but also practical for classroom discussions or workshops. An extensive bibliography and links provided in notes from mainstream media can make these lectures and workshops rich with context.
The human race has a long history compared to the tech revolution. The author highlights our relatively stable biological structure. AI scares this stability. AI scares not because of its technical prowess, but because it interferes with our psychology. AI interferes with our thinking, decision-making and the way we relate to others. The author highlighted three enablers of the AI juggernaut: hyper-connectedness, datafication from all our senses and movements and the eye-popping profits of prediction. Connected, data and prediction make us efficient, predictable, but also less curious, less spontaneous and less patient. This dichotomy is beautifully brought out in the book.
Over the following few chapters, the authors lay out the argument and explain how AI leverages human strengths. Each of the subsequent chapters discusses attention, patience, the unique human strength of making decisions, valuing relationships, being other-oriented and finally predictability.
There is considerable discussion about the attention economy. Most of the rise of social media is further enhanced by AI. The author calls it ‘Weapons of Mass Distraction’ (Chapter 2). The whole business model of AI is built on distraction. All AI and social media platforms are competing for our attention.
Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon has pointed out the economics of attention. As we accumulate a ‘wealth of information’, it creates a ‘poverty of attention’. The author highlighted how this has started with the invention of the printing press, and now we are at the pinnacle of it with AI. However, AI is the most sophisticated, centralised and standardised form of attention control in history (p. 33). Some of the statistics cited are eye-openers. For instance, college students spend 8–10 h per day on social media. The Economist pegs the costs of distraction at a staggering 60% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the USA.
The human race has primarily progressed through concentration and patience. AI is making us impatient (Chapter 3). Here, too, the author draws from Aristotle and Tolstoy. This is one peculiar aspect of the book and its author. A chapter is dedicated to how AI is eroding human psychological strengths, and each chapter traces the history of that virtue, cites statistics, and highlights alarming mainstream media news to illustrate the impact of AI. People are grabbing a smartphone within a minute of waking up. And a new pathology is suggested on addictive technology similar to gambling, drinking and smoking. The author pointed out how TikTok is the first consumer app where AI is the product (p. 54). However, the alarming rise of impatience is impairing intuition, our ability to grow intellectually, develop expertise and acquire knowledge.
AI was touted as an unbiased (Chapter 4). However, the author cites high-profile cases, such as those involving Amazon, to illustrate how AI can be biased. As the data on which AI is trained are generated by biased human beings, AI replicates the same bias. The author points out that humans are ‘dumb, irrational, and biased’ (p. 61). AI amplifies this bias. AI can enhance meritocracy, but, unchecked, it may continue to replicate our biases.
The author is highly critical of narcissism or self-obsession and how AI is accentuating this (Chapter 5). Likes, followers, retweets and even leaders are falling into the trap of self-promotion alarmingly. In the cacophony, visibility is taking precedence over the person’s content or substance. And thus, competence is taking a back seat to confidence. Digital or online confidence and actual on-the-ground competence are two different things. This has implications not only for organisations but also for community leadership. This is persuasively argued in the chapter on digital narcissism.
AI is promoted as a predictable machine (Chapter 6). However, the author argues that it is making us predictable. AI and various behavioural interventions, algorithms are constraining us to an automated kind of behaviour. And this is making us increasingly predictable. Our responses are reduced, and our complexity as human beings is downgraded. One of the observations is that AI’s this aspect of making us predictable is largely overlooked. We, humans, are using AI as our ‘life concierge’. This is taking away any serendipity, spontaneity and impulsive behaviour from our routine life. The author goes to the extent of calling this a digital version of Stockholm syndrome, where we surrender to algorithms. Humans are psychologically complex and deep creatures, and the author insists that we need to reclaim this.
The last bastion of human acumen is curiosity (Chapter 7). Curiosity is a basic instinct among humans. Even four-month-old children are curious, and curiosity peaks around 4–5 years of age. It declines thereafter. Fortunately, AI cannot be intrinsically curious. Artificial curiosity is the opposite of human curiosity. The author points out that curiosity is not automated, probably because it will cannibalise AI. He points out statistics showing that only 15% of questions asked on Google are never asked before. In the world of automation, curiosity is in high demand and will likely remain so. Curiosity is also linked to learnability. Learnability is identified as a meta-competency (Hall & Chandler, 2005). Moreover, humans need understanding not only answers. On the contrary, AI is just data engineering. It does not require theory. We do need theory. Science is also data plus theory. We need friends who understand. Thus, this understanding, curiosity and learnability may be an antidote to automation.
In the final chapter (Chapter 8), the author comments on ‘How to be Human’. He sounds optimistic. He points to human agency with Maya Angelou’s quote, ‘You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them’ (p. 141). He advises against distractions, predictability, narcissism and bias. The author suggests a solution in positive psychology. In the promise of positive psychology to transcend our limits, foster spiritual growth and cultivate emotional acumen. He points out that we can refrain from ‘driverless humans’. We humans need not be mere ‘data-emission vessels’ for the AI world.
Overall, the author successfully conveys the nuances of the psychological impact of the AI world on humans and the human race. It is not the technological innovations of AI, but the psychological disturbance that is more troubling. The author suggests not competing with machines, but rather maintaining our distinctiveness, maintaining our uniqueness. He advises slowing down, focusing rather than distracting, emphasising what algorithms cannot do, and exploring serendipity and spontaneity beyond predictions.
However, as a reader, it falls short of quenching my thirst. I was looking forward to richer solutions, studies, interventions and action plans that may help individuals, organisations and societies to counter AI’s psychological influence. Particularly, any case studies or any possibilities of enhancing deep curiosity, reducing digital narcissism, bias and impatience.
Finally, I highly recommend the book to the journal’s readers. The book is accessible, and like other Harvard publications, it is rich in references and includes self-administered questionnaires. It enriches our understanding of the AI world.