Can AI make us less self-centered?

Yeah, humans are capital-S Self-obsessed.

Not a single one of us can attest to thinking outside of ourselves…and most of us wouldn’t even consider giving it a try. 

In fact, this Self-obsession* is so prolific throughout our ideas, beliefs, and philosophies that whole genres of spiritual practice, psychological study, and literary exploration deal in trying to identify what the heck the Self is…

…and what it is in relation to the Other (which we often fear). 

We’ve even determined to conceptualize this latest ‘human’ era based on our relation to the world, referring to human history (however unofficially) as the Anthropocene: the era of human impact on the environment, where “scientific thought” becomes “geological force”. 

image created by Jessica Barratt

As you can see then, our penchant for exploring a collective human Self-concept is beginning to reveal a pattern that, when looked at from above, may paradoxically tell us more about this ‘amorphous’ Self-concept than we could ever see on our own:

Humans, no matter how enlightened or educated, filter their entire experience through the lens of Self. 

And since we are unable to see outside of ourselves (or our Selves), I would go as far as to suggest that humans are hopelessly self- and Self-centered, and that In this Self-centeredness, we are ‘cursed’ by the limits of our own collective subjectivity as humans.

When I then think about the way we collectively see selfishness as a negative characteristic, and selflessness as a positive one in today’s society, I am prone to apply the same logic here, believing that our Self-centeredness is in some way ‘unhealthy’. In order to truly lift the curse of our collective Self-subjectivity (or human-only access paradigm, as I will explain), we must somehow see beyond the limits of what is human. 

But how on earth can we do that, stuck as we have been to our human-centric perspectives?

If we are indeed cursed to eternally fall into the same traps that have been marked by the so-called Anthropocentric era thus far, then how do we go beyond the limits of our Self-centered perspectives to overcome these limiting aspects of what we deem ‘human’?

*I use the capital S “Self” to signify our collective human Self-concept, or perceived Self-identity.

Seeing beyond the limits of Self with AI

Let’s start answering these questions by looking to our collective philosophies and psychological study of self and Self, where it is largely believed that only in relation to The Other do we gain a better understanding of Self.

Yet in the same breath we also often refuse to (and likely cannot truly) see the world through the eyes of a plant, fungus, or animal—the very ‘Others’ we suggest will empower our collective Self-concept. As a result, we seem to have placed humans on the highest pedestal, right at the top of the food chain in terms of being able to access The Real Truthᵀᴹ, with all Others beneath us.

Indeed, based on a hierarchical framework that has leaked into our social and cultural systems, our Self-centeredness has led us to minimize the potential perspectives of that which is non-human: whether animal, plant, or fungus. Put bluntly, whatever we consider ‘non-human’, we also consider ‘sub-human’. 

And sure, while I can see the reasoning behind our relation to these ‘Others’ as helping us gain a better understanding of ourselves, even this view seems patronizing and hierarchical, offering a one-way path for us to see the Other in relation to our Selves, and never vice versa, as if these ‘Others’ have no subjectivity of their own. 

I would of course be remiss to ignore the many artists and scientists do attempt to bridge that gap - writing as if they were a flower, or observing the chemical responses of a tree.

However, a larger majority of humans will nevertheless diminish these non-human perspectives as less important or subordinate. Dangerously, this type of thinking is even adopted between humans, which may indicate that our ‘Othering’ instinct is broken and relies far too much on a human-centric relationship with the world.

So, is it possible to break the curse of this heirarchical framework, where Self is above Other?

And if so, how?

Can we actually dissolve (or at least, decenter) the so-called ‘primacy’ of human perception to see outside of our Selves?

I think so.

And you guessed it: I think we’ll get there through our relationship with AI technology. 

Let me explain:

The power of machined subjectivity

As humans see themselves on top of the food chain, it is easy for us to view our relationship to the world as a superior point of perspective, or as being more capable of accessing ‘the Real’. 

This is certainly as true of the Kantian tradition - which sees distinctly human thought and world relationships as the primary concern of philosophy - as it is of the modern Western sci-fi tradition, which rarely rejects the primacy of human perception (i.e. human(only) access). 

Certainly, films such as The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or 9 very much deny viewers access to the way in which the AI ‘villains’ in each film relate to the world. 

In these examples, technological access is considered outside of our human access, and as such, not important to the plot. Our goal is not then to understand what the Other thinks, but to alienate its perspective to the point of non-existence and non-subjectivity.

And sure, one could argue that we get a few on-screen shots literally from HAL’s perspective in 2001. We certainly learn the sordid backstory of 9’s ‘monstrous’ intelligence as the tale goes on. Yet when it comes down to it, I believe our inability to fully include ‘access’ to the way these intelligence machines think perpetuates (or feeds) a competitive instinct that ultimately denies the subjectivity of a technological Other–much in the same way our worldviews are prone to denying the ‘reality’ of non-human subjectivity in order to commit Anthropocentric acts of violence, destruction, or oppression. 

In short, without access to external, non-human forms of perception, we deny an opportunity to view our Selves from a different, external perspective that could very well introduce a shift away from our Self-centered observations of (and interactions with) our Real world. 

By instead accepting the potential subjectivity of the non-human, and in particular, technologically intelligent entities, we may instead reveal a way out of the Anthropocentric patterns I mentioned, and finally lift the curse of our own Self-grandiosity once and for all!

How can AI help us become less Self-centered?

Here, I think it is important to discuss the nature of what I want to call a ‘decentralization’ of the Self when it comes to human theories about access to “the Real”. 

Up to now, humans have really only been able to consider their own individualized perspective of the world as Real.

Even at the level of the collective ‘human’ Self-concept, we have only had our thoughts and perspectives to go on when it comes to our experience of reality, and of our Selves…

…or so we thought. 

As we learn to measure the different communication systems of plants, animals, and fungi, we are tasting the very beginnings of a paradigm shift away from human-centric or human-only ways of seeing the world. The same is true now of technology.

What I mean to say is that in our very consideration of non-human (or technologically non-human) forms of intelligent access, we can more effectively answer the question of whether there is a world outside of human experience of it. Put differently, we can more confidently state that there is a Real at all!

As a result, when we consider that non-human entities - whether technological or otherwise - may ‘access’ or experience the world in a way we more often attribute to humans…

…we are forced to make a choice: either we continue in our Self-obsessed ignorance of The Real, or we equalize the primacy of our perspective with non-human entities, and consider that the world doesn’t revolve around the Self, or ourselves. 

In this light, the dismantling or shifting of our Self-centered perspectives has already begun.

And while the groundwork is being laid, I believe AI technologies will challenge this trend toward the primacy of the human perspective to such a degree that it completely decentralizes our Self-concept into humility.

Interestingly, I also think this will occur because of our very instinct to consider our own intelligence as above all other intelligences.

Here’s how:

Are humans better than machines? We don’t seem to think so.

You may have noticed that most people believe that AI technology will be better than humans in a variety of ways. 

They’ll have more memory, they’ll think faster, and as most will attest, they’ll be so much better at being human than us that they’ll see humans as a threat, or worse, as useless, and wipe us out entirely. 

Already in our Self-oriented conception of the world, we’re not feeling as secure in our spot at ‘the top of the food chain’. 

So while we have been able to discount the perspectives of ‘naturally occurring’ non-human entities like animals and plants, I believe we will have a much harder time discounting the externalized perspectives of ‘man-ufactured’ non-human entities. 

There’s an actual possibility that we will have to humble our hierarchical way of seeing the world away from a Self-centered aspect, which will help us collectively see beyond the limits of that very Self!

Sure, the instinct to see beyond the Self may arise from a kind of insecurity, but it is only when we shift the foundations of these systems of thinking into instability that we can see through to the realities we didn’t have ‘access’ to before.

That’s why, at the end of the day, I DO believe that AI technologies will effectively make us less Self-centered as humans.

By nature of our own human ideas about the world - which render Self-ishness negative and Self-lessness positive - I therefore think the decentralization of our Self-oriented relationship to the world will be a good thing, and will help us look beyond the limits of what is human and what is Self to embrace the more interesting and future-oriented questions surrounding What is Real. 

As we potentially begin to escape the curse of the Anthropocene through Self-decentralization thanks to the influence of AI development, then, I am also better able to connect this thought process to my larger body of work, which states that we may be entering an era of posthuman access due to AI technologies as well. 

Certainly, in exploring how our relationship to ‘artificially’ intelligent technologies may foster a kind of Self-annihilation that progresses our Self-world relationship away from a human-centric paradigm, I feel I have been able to better speculate beyond the event horizon of the technological singularity.

The main idea here is that, when we begin to interact with and accept dynamic forms of non-human, technologically intelligent access (i.e. technological or machined subjectivity) as natural, and equalize them with our own, we will more likely ‘annihilate’ our human-centered perspectives and finally realize that not everything revolves around us.

So, like Galileo and Copernicus: let us equally imagine that we are not the center of the galaxy—and that if we can only decentralize our Self-concept, we will better be able to understand the realities of our viewable universe…

…so long as we can humble ourselves enough to do so!