AI's Erosion of Human Agency and Trust in the Digital Age
By
Charlie Warzel
Hand-rolled, kettle-boiled, baked to perfection. Worth every minute at the bakery.
Summary
The article explores how AI is creating a "crisis of agency" by eroding human trust and autonomy in online spaces. Drawing on Max Read's concept of "the Inversion" from 2018—where bots have come to constitute the internet rather than just populate it—the piece argues that AI systems are now deepening this crisis by making it increasingly difficult for people to trust what they encounter online, from content to interactions. The article examines how AI-generated content, deepfakes, and automated systems are fundamentally altering human perception of reality and agency, leading to a breakdown in trust and a sense of lost control over digital experiences.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledWhat's gone from the internet, after all, isn't 'truth,' but trust: the sense that the people and things we encounter are what they represent themselves to be
Not only had bots proliferated across the internet; they had come to constitute it.
In outnumbering humans, bots were also loosening everyone's grasp on the very reality of online experience.
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