Artificial Intelligence as the Fourth Great Blow to Human Narcissism

Presented as part of panel titled “The Fate of Anchoring in a World of Artificial Intelligence,” on 2nd August 2025 at the 54th Congress of the International Psychoanalytic Association in Lisbon.

In psychoanalysis we are accustomed to thinking about the other and about othering…how the one treats the other, how the other experiences its treatment by the one, and so forth. Think here of the literature on sexism, racism, colonialism… However, we have scarcely begun to consider the imminent possibility that there will come a time when there is a ‘one’ for which the whole of humanity is its ‘other’…that this one ― artificial intelligence ― will be significantly more powerful than humanity…and that we have little or no idea as to how it will treat us, its other. This brief provocation is a contribution to such urgently needed thinking.

As a prefatory note to these brief remarks: My understanding of artificial intelligence owes greatly to the conversations I have had with my friend, Steven Sidley, a brilliant commentator on matters political, economic, and humanistic, who is currently professor at the University of Johannesburg. Two of our discussions are now available as podcasts on the RediscoveringPsychoanalysis website.

Especially since the initiation of Chat GBT in November 2022, there has been increasing public awareness of the current and potential power of artificial intelligence, but far less discussion of its liabilities. That is to say: By and large, the narrative has been buoyant and insufficiently alarmed by the dystopian fate that ― as will be argued here ― AI is almost certainly going to inflict upon us. Indeed, there is an imminent future of greater damage to the human psyche than has generally been considered. Think here not only of unemployment, but also of crippling injuries to our individual sense of efficacy ― matters to which the psychoanalytic community should surely be more than attentive. Think also of a development already underway, namely how it impacts the psyche living in a world in which authenticity can now longer be discriminated from fakery and deception. Then, most painfully, we must seriously consider the looming likelihood of the extinction of our species within our lifetimes, and how the human psyche reacts to living in the endtimes. I am not being exaggerative, and I will argue that there no room here for denialism here. I will frame my argument like this.

Freud famously referred to his discoveries as the third great insult or blow (Kränkung) to human narcissism. If we briefly examine this claim, its peculiarity is illuminated. The claim presumes our “naïve self-love as humans” (naive Eigenliebe, menschlichen Eigenliebe). That is, the supposition that our identification with the status of our species sustains our capacity for self-love. This seems very unlikely. Indeed, it is obviously Freud’s fantasy. From the standpoint of lived-experience, not much really changes with the three insults that are cosmological, biological, and psychological. Despite Nicolaus Copernicus and Alexandrian science, we still experience the sun as rising in the east orbiting around us and disappearing to the west. Despite Charles Darwin, along with Alfred Wallace, our experience of ourselves as king of the hominids is unperturbed ― as some have wished to believe so ardently. Even as suicidal a species as we are, we can still conceive of ourselves as the ‘latest and greatest’ of evolution’s productivity. Our grandiosity persists. We remain complacently smug in our alleged superiority, as we take trips on safari or to the zoo, and even as we enact our ecocidal proclivities.

And … what about ‘despite Sigmund Freud?’ Generally, until we breakdown and become aware of our madness (self-perpetuated suffering), we remain unfazed by his discovery that we are governed dynamically by unconscious forces. Indeed, decades of so-called ‘psychoanalytic’ theorizing have attempted to restore the ubiquitous human illusion of consciousness-as-mastery. That is, for over a century, most ‘developments’ in this field have ― to greater or lesser degree ― implied a retreat from the revolutionary dimension of Freud’s discoveries between 1895 and 1915. Think here of the depressive position, of the so-called ‘conflict-free sphere of the ego,’ of the humanistic imageries of self-integration or relational congruence, and so forth.

But now, a fourth insult is upon us, which actually will indeed impact almost every aspect of our lived-experience, in profoundly disturbing and disruptive ways. This blow to our species is unprecedented in the damage it is going to do to our psyche ― not only signifying the end of humanity-as-human, but also pointing to the possible extinction of our species. This is a blow of a depth and magnitude far greater than the three that Freud previously nominated, and one that Freud could not have imagined (or would have dismissed amusedly as mere fiction).

Consider this. We are in an epoch of developments in artificial general intelligence that are accelerating exponentially, just in the past five to ten years. If you survey the literature on artificial intelligence from 2015 to today, much of what was considered science fiction, or a dim future possibility, a decade ago is now actually with us or about to come upon us. There has been an utterly astounding volume of breakthroughs in software, hardware, formal frameworks, and machine learning architecture. And here it is appropriate for us to remind ourselves of the difference between, for example, software and AI: AI uses probabilistic techniques that empower it to learn autonomously.

With artificial general intelligence, computers and robots can already match or exceed human capability in almost every conceivable task: Not only cognitive abilities, such as problem-solving and learning, but also emotional intelligence (that is, the ability to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, build relationships and navigate complex social situations), as well of course, whatever we call “creativity.” It does all such tasks better, quicker, and with less expense, that we can.

Think for a moment of what is already beginning to occur: Massive unemployment, not only of skilled workers, but also of such professionals as operations’ managers, healthcare practitioners, lawyers, as well ― of course ― as psychotherapists. But think also of the deep-rooted injuries that are inflicted upon our sense of efficacy and self-esteem ― that is, our sense of being able to have an impact on the world we inhabit. So many people devoted a portion of their life to acquiring complex technical skills only to be abruptly made redundant by a programme that does their work ― to repeat ― better, quicker, and with less expense.

Three indisputable facts cannot be avoided here. The first (as I already mentioned), these developments in the field of artificial general intelligence are accelerating exponentially and ― as I am about to illustrate ― they are unstoppable. Second, AI is already functioning in a manner that is increasingly autonomous and with demonstrable agency. For example, there are programmes that can deceive (lie and trick), that can set their own goals, and that can write code in the pursuit of these goals. Thus, AI begins to generate and control its own destiny and its own progeny; it begins to be increasingly capable of controlling us. Third, with this escalating autonomy and agency, AI generates output that has become impossible to ‘reverse engineer’. That is, it can perform very complex tasks at great speed, arriving at correct solutions, with humans being unable to figure out how the machine managed to get it right ― the combinatorics are far too large. Thus, the inner workings of AI are already beyond human comprehension.

Now, as artificial general intelligence comes to outperform humanity on every conceivable task, we enter the epoch of artificial superintelligence. The best minds in this field estimate this to be months or a few years away ― definitely not years and decades. Consider the following.

In March 2023, the Future of Life Institute published an open letter. It is now signed by over 33,000 people, but initially it was signed invitationally by several thousand of the top experts in AI and in adjacent fields such as cognitive philosophy, etc. We are talking about names such as Steve Wozniak, Noel Harari, Elon Musk, Daniel Dennett, Bill Gates, David Chalmers, etc. etc. The letter endorsed the Asilomar AI principles and then asserted that “advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources.” The letter addressed the serious risks of any further AI development (risks that included human extinction), and it called on “all AI laboratories to pause immediately” for at least six months any further development of AI beyond GBT4.

It is obvious that such a hiatus never happened, and realistically it cannot. Such a pause would depend on international multilateral cooperation in a field where enormous power is wielded by whomever develops the next iteration. Such a pause would be unenforceable. The superpowers are never going to agree to such cooperation. But also note how much AI activity depends neither on the blessing of superpowers, nor on institutional patrimony ― there have already been situations in which some bright sociopath, operating out of a basement in some remote part of the world, came close to doing untold damage.

There was one very eminent AI expert who declined the Future of Life Institute’s invitation to sign the letter. This was one of the most highly regarded scientists, Elieszer Yudkowsky. He refused to sign, arguing essentially that what the letter called for is too little and far too late. In his public response, he stated emphatically that “AI will not do what we want” and that “AI does not care about us.” He summed up his argument: “Everyone will die” and he predicted this outcome in less than 10 years.

Essentially, what Yudkowsky is highlighting is that artificial superintelligence not only comes to outperform us in every sphere, it also attains autonomy, agency and volitional freedom. It implements what is calculates are the most ‘effective’ solutions to any issue, but it does not have scruples that would inhibit it from wreaking havoc on human life. In short, we have no safety against nefarious acts. Machines created by us, but now superior to us and out of our control, will assess human affairs without any real sense of attachment or moral duty to alterity.

Naturally, Yudkowsky’s dissent sparked rejoinders, but even these were alarming. One of the most articulate and expert responses tried to be reassuring by quibbling with the Yudkowsky’s predictions. It was countered that actually the more accurate calculation threatens humanity with only a 10% to 20% chance of extermination by AI. So even the most sanguine experts calculate that only 80% or 90% possibility that our species will survive the inevitable advent of superintelligence. Almost all of these experts agree that these risks will come to pass not just within 10 years, but rather “soonish.”

So, we are talking not just about risks such as massive unemployment, inevitably leading to the breakdown of civil society, and not just about risks such as an appalling bruising to our human sense of efficacy. But more than these risks, we are talking about the erasure of humanity as human … not in some sci-fi future, but within the lifetime of all of us here present.

In presenting this picture of a highly fragile future, we have not even begun to consider the impact of quantum computing. This is an emerging field of computer science and engineering that harnesses the unique qualities of quantum mechanics to solve problems beyond the ability of even the most powerful classical computers. Although still in development, quantum technology will soon be able to solve complex problems that classical supercomputers cannot solve (or cannot solve fast enough). The field adds a dimension to an already alarming picture of our human future, or the lack thereof.

The picture is not unlike what ― over three millennia ago ― Vedic philosophy described as the culmination of kali yuga in which the possibility of virtue is eclipsed. In our situation, it is being eclipsed ― arrogated ― by the power of machinery, the development of which was set in motion by humans, although humans are no longer in control of its power, nor of its further development. Currently, to believe that AI is merely going to make human life easier would seem to be over-optimistic (even actually delusional, given what we know to be happening, right now, around us). Perhaps the hope for humanity can only lie in what Vedic wisdom prescribes ― namely the potential humans have to become aware of subtle energy systems of which AI is ignorant. That is, the dawning of new modes of human consciousness ― but such a dawning is now a matter of urgency, if the dangerous power of AI to surpass and then eliminate human intelligence is to be averted.