I'd argue that part of the power of AI is its ability to lie convincingly to us, and again the language of intentionality pokes its nose under the tent. Of course its real and intended power is its ability to organize and consolodate information in ways that are useful, though that keeps getting conflated with things like writing and thinking. If we can't understand how it works we should at least understand what its doing to us.
For social sciences to stretch into the bigness of the structures and the largeness of the processes seems to be called for -- even on the superficial level where i dwell and try to understand what's going on. The threat appears to me to be making us devolve (more) into ignorant & purely transactional beasts guided by large language models' dictation of an ongoing computer simulation of reality. I think this is being made possible without a solitary human necessarily believing a machine has sentience, consciousness. It just takes marketing, preaching that as a gospel.
We are being drawn into the ultimate Gestell, as i understand heidegger/Dreyfus. Back in my prime, when i thought I was flying with the eagles, I was cognizant of the big boys -- heidegger, Wittgenstein, Dewey -- all coming to the same conclusion from their very different POVs: that what we need is *a new way of thinking*. AI aint it.
It seems to me that "the social sciences in the public interest" should have this charge. Good luck. I'll be reading along as best I can. This (with trumpism, et al, to boot) is all quite a desolation for a 77-year-old. I hope things look better for you younger, more active thinkers.
In my interactions with AI, I get a sense of being 'groomed' much as a pedophile does with a victim. The fauning politeness seems to be hiding a more sinister agenda. Our naivety will be our downfall.
There is interesting empirical research on AI writing tools, which suggests that they may have insidious influence on the norms and opinions of writers who use them, of which influence those writers are distressingly unaware.
I consider the work, which I cite below, preliminary and suggestive, not decisive, but well worth further investigation and concern.
Williams-Ceci, S., Jakesch, M., Bhat, A., Kadoma, K., Zalmanson, L., & Naaman, M. (2026). Biased AI writing assistants shift users’ attitudes on societal issues. Science Advances, 12(11), eadw5578. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adw5578
Matz, S. C., Teeny, J. D., Vaid, S. S., Peters, H., Harari, G. M., & Cerf, M. (2024). The potential of generative AI for personalized persuasion at scale. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 4692. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-53755-0
Hölbling, L., Maier, S., & Feuerriegel, S. (2025). A meta-analysis of the persuasive power of large language models. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 43818. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-30783-y
Kupferschmidt, K. (2026). AI chatbots are becoming experts at changing people’s minds. What’s their secret? Science, 393, 754–757. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ael6251
Please get your pronoun usage right, the use of “myself” instead of me in this now corrected statement from your post should be expected from someone seeking to opine and influence.
“Things have been happening since The New York Times published a comment piece by Alison Gopnik, James Evans, and “me” on the relationship between AI and social science last Sunday.
I'm Irish. Hiberno-English is not, as it happens, the same as American English. You can either live with my vernacular preferences or leave as you like; myself, I'm entirely indifferent.
It is important to remember that psychology is a social science, and our level of anxiety about AI technological disruption is probably the canary in the coal mine. We are already witnessing an increase in 'diseases of despair'. Robots won't have to kill us; we will probably simply commit suicide.
Interesting and as a product of the social sciences I would also say futuristic in a positive way. I will not read future studies of the coming changes created by AI due to my chronology but those changes will be a part of the human-robot experience. I am doubtful about the adequacy of funding for the social sciences.
Apologies if you've said this elsewhere and I'm unaware (I only just started following your newsletter). But have you somewhere discussed why you use the term "AI"? I would argue, with many others, that it's a marketing term that is far too broad, and obscures more than it illuminates. Depending on what you're actually talking about, generative AI or LLM would be more precise and useful (I think). Some of your conclusions become quite fuzzy to me because I don't know what meaning you ascribe to this term.
I'd argue that part of the power of AI is its ability to lie convincingly to us, and again the language of intentionality pokes its nose under the tent. Of course its real and intended power is its ability to organize and consolodate information in ways that are useful, though that keeps getting conflated with things like writing and thinking. If we can't understand how it works we should at least understand what its doing to us.
For social sciences to stretch into the bigness of the structures and the largeness of the processes seems to be called for -- even on the superficial level where i dwell and try to understand what's going on. The threat appears to me to be making us devolve (more) into ignorant & purely transactional beasts guided by large language models' dictation of an ongoing computer simulation of reality. I think this is being made possible without a solitary human necessarily believing a machine has sentience, consciousness. It just takes marketing, preaching that as a gospel.
We are being drawn into the ultimate Gestell, as i understand heidegger/Dreyfus. Back in my prime, when i thought I was flying with the eagles, I was cognizant of the big boys -- heidegger, Wittgenstein, Dewey -- all coming to the same conclusion from their very different POVs: that what we need is *a new way of thinking*. AI aint it.
It seems to me that "the social sciences in the public interest" should have this charge. Good luck. I'll be reading along as best I can. This (with trumpism, et al, to boot) is all quite a desolation for a 77-year-old. I hope things look better for you younger, more active thinkers.
In my interactions with AI, I get a sense of being 'groomed' much as a pedophile does with a victim. The fauning politeness seems to be hiding a more sinister agenda. Our naivety will be our downfall.
There is interesting empirical research on AI writing tools, which suggests that they may have insidious influence on the norms and opinions of writers who use them, of which influence those writers are distressingly unaware.
I consider the work, which I cite below, preliminary and suggestive, not decisive, but well worth further investigation and concern.
Williams-Ceci, S., Jakesch, M., Bhat, A., Kadoma, K., Zalmanson, L., & Naaman, M. (2026). Biased AI writing assistants shift users’ attitudes on societal issues. Science Advances, 12(11), eadw5578. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adw5578
Matz, S. C., Teeny, J. D., Vaid, S. S., Peters, H., Harari, G. M., & Cerf, M. (2024). The potential of generative AI for personalized persuasion at scale. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 4692. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-53755-0
Hölbling, L., Maier, S., & Feuerriegel, S. (2025). A meta-analysis of the persuasive power of large language models. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 43818. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-30783-y
Kupferschmidt, K. (2026). AI chatbots are becoming experts at changing people’s minds. What’s their secret? Science, 393, 754–757. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ael6251
Please get your pronoun usage right, the use of “myself” instead of me in this now corrected statement from your post should be expected from someone seeking to opine and influence.
“Things have been happening since The New York Times published a comment piece by Alison Gopnik, James Evans, and “me” on the relationship between AI and social science last Sunday.
I'm Irish. Hiberno-English is not, as it happens, the same as American English. You can either live with my vernacular preferences or leave as you like; myself, I'm entirely indifferent.
It is important to remember that psychology is a social science, and our level of anxiety about AI technological disruption is probably the canary in the coal mine. We are already witnessing an increase in 'diseases of despair'. Robots won't have to kill us; we will probably simply commit suicide.
https://johnhardman.substack.com/p/megatons-of-technology
Great piece - I agree that understanding the historical distribution of power and control of narrative is key to getting to grips with AI:
https://wonklifebalance.substack.com/p/are-we-really-doomed
Interesting and as a product of the social sciences I would also say futuristic in a positive way. I will not read future studies of the coming changes created by AI due to my chronology but those changes will be a part of the human-robot experience. I am doubtful about the adequacy of funding for the social sciences.
Best,
tv
Apologies if you've said this elsewhere and I'm unaware (I only just started following your newsletter). But have you somewhere discussed why you use the term "AI"? I would argue, with many others, that it's a marketing term that is far too broad, and obscures more than it illuminates. Depending on what you're actually talking about, generative AI or LLM would be more precise and useful (I think). Some of your conclusions become quite fuzzy to me because I don't know what meaning you ascribe to this term.
this gives a sense https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-040723-013245