Artificial Intelligence and Alienation: Intimacy, Knowledge, and Recognition In an Alienated World

What needs has the mass adoption of AI in the private sphere served to satisfy? Why has it been so easy for AI to establish itself as an integral part of the personal lives of millions of people, coming to be regarded as capable of alleviating a broad range of daily needs—from financial and household management advisors to close friends, emotional companions, and mental health supporters? This session will investigate larger sociological questions concerning the quality of life in modern societies. What has life in modern society become that interacting with inanimate objects or establishing emotional relationships with a chatbot has come to be viewed as an acceptable, and even preferable, alternative to normal human relationships in improving one’s quality of life? Do such tendencies comprise evidence of a new stage of alienation and qualitative change in the social process of modern societies through a transition to a new stage of industrialization and the emergence of new forms of alienation? For what is AI useful in high modernity? What makes it possible for AI to be welcomed in the most intimate spheres of private life as a non-human solution to socially created human problems? This session seeks to elaborate an alienation theory and research perspective concerning these much debated and controversial issues. Both theoretical and empirical studies that address these issues and contribute to this highly polarized research field will be welcome.