HMN 2025: 20 ways AI will transform the way we think in 2025

Does AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) just around the corner or is it always many years to come? Does the “agent age» about us, or are we overestimating the sophistication of our technology?

Let’s face it, as enlightening and entertaining as these predictions may be, they will never be completely accurate. Blinded by our own pride and self-importance, we are not reliable soothsayers; in fact, we’re better off letting AI make the predictions for us. Unlike us, he understands his limits.

There is, however, one area in which humans might have a unique advantage: understanding the human psyche, that is, analyzing the idiosyncratic ways in which we think and feel. So, instead of predictions focused on the technological, economic, societal, or political aspects of AI, I would like to explore how AI will affect us psychologically in the coming year. How will our hearts and minds change? What effect will the continued evolution of AI have on our emotions, mental processes and behaviors? I’ve written about this before, but we seem to be at (another) inflection point for AI, making it a good time to check in.

Here are my 20 intuitive, unscientific and entirely subjective predictions for 2025:

1. As AI becomes more powerful, it grows autonomy and perhaps even show signs of sensitivity we are destined to become more humble. AI puts us in our place when it comes to acquiring and retaining knowledge, detecting patterns, or calculating at record speed. On a more philosophical level, we will begin to rethink our position in the universe, having lost our right to the center.
2. This could lead us to foster empathy and treat other life forms and living systems, for example animals and nature, with more dignity and respect.
3. Beware of envy! AI capabilities are already impressive; as they grow and improve, we are likely to simultaneously admire and resent what they can do.
4. It is not an exaggeration to imagine AI becoming this mysterious other with whom our spouse, partner, colleague, friend would prefer to spend the evening. Jealousy can make us all look foolish.
5. Conversely, if there is an “AI failure,” we could all benefit. schadenfreude.
6. Fear! We can feel so overwhelmed and overwhelmed by AI that it triggers an epidemic of imposter syndrome. Of course, AI could help us”overcome human insufficiency”, but this could come at a high price: an aggravated fear of our inadequacy. We may feel inadequate and insecure and begin to suffer from low self-esteem.
7. In fact, there are a number of very human phobias that AI will make worse: atelophobiafear of imperfection; atychiphobiafear of failure; and even athazagoraphobiathe fear of being forgotten or replaced.
8. On this last point, the risk of human extinction caused by AI is contested but real. One of the “godfathers” of AI, Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton, recently estimated the probability 10 to 20% in the next three decades.
9. A second set of feelings will concern relationship problems. The good news: Because our relationship with AI is not physical, many of the trickiest and most sensitive relationship phobias will not be exacerbated by our artificial friends: philemaphobia (fear of kissing), genophobia (fear of sex), chiratophobia (fear of being touched), omphalophobia (fear of navels), etc.
10. Due to the dramatic advances in AI, as well as rogue moments this could happen, we risk experiencing pistanthrophobiathe fear of trusting others or, AI undoubtedly being the ultimate other, even xenophobia.
11. But at the same time we will know more intimacy (artificial) in our relationship with AI. More of us view AI as a friend or romantic partner, helping us feel less alone and isolated, more understood, wanted and loved. This could, however, hinder our ability to develop real intimacy or have more devastating consequences.
12. In fact, AI could lock us into exclusive and loyal relationships. When each interaction with a particular AI will cause it to learn more about us, interactions with other AIs may seem “weird” and less natural. According to organizational psychologist Nils Van Quaquebeke, this could have two consequences. First, the costs of transitioning between AI models will increase, and second, the AI ??that drives our company’s loyalty may hinder our personal growth, becoming the equivalent of a nagging partner who says, “But we’ve always done it this way.” way !
13. Despite (or perhaps because of) this intimate trap, we could develop philophobiaa fear of falling in love.
14. AI could foment what Diana Lind calls “human doom loop», the complete digitalization of our lives to the extent that we have little incentive to leave the house. The resulting deprivation of our social self will correspond to the degradation of our physical environment. We will become lonelier, more isolated and even depressed, while our built environments stagnate and become more desolate.
15. As we delegate more tasks to AI, we may experience cognitive atrophy; that is, we will become less adept at certain cognitive skills. In other words: we risk becoming more careless thinkers.
16. Or maybe the opposite will happen. AI could sharpen our intellect as it would augment our cognitive skills, serving as a “spirit for our spirits”, to borrow a concept from AI researchers Dave and Helen Edwards. By merging human neuroplasticity and “techno-plasticity,” we could in fact eventually witness the development of an entirely new synthetic mind.
17. Similarly, we could delegate our ethics to AI, expecting it to make “rational,” “objective,” carefully weighted, data-driven decisions for us when we face moral dilemmas. This in turn could exhaust our moral imagination.
18. The same paradoxical effect could occur with regard to emotional diversity. On the one hand, AI could restrict the scope of our expressiveness, forcing our emotions into a reductionist, monochrome set of predictable choices, while ignoring, or even stifling, more complex and nuanced emotions (a criticisms addressed to so-called emotional AI applications).
19. On the other hand, the use of AI could change the very catalog of human emotions. Emotions are not black and white, and there are myriad shades of gray in between. No one knew this better than John Koenig, who in his seminal book Dictionary of Dark Pains chronicled anonymous, niche, unorthodox feelings outside the emotional mainstream.
20. In the workplace, we may begin to prefer AI managers over their human counterparts because their attitude and behavior are consistent. AI bosses do not have mood swings or make impulsive decisions; there is no passive-aggressive behavior, political calculation or favoritism. AI managers have nothing to prove and treat everyone the same based on objective criteria.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it shows how the impact of AI on our emotions and behaviors can be potentially paradoxical and inevitably complex. It’s not a stable relationship. We cannot give it up either.

We are trapped in a shared future that we may not want, and the impossibility of a breakup is the only thing we can be certain of. Everything else will remain unpredictable. This should be an exciting year!