The rise of AI has sparked an intense wave of both concern and fascination, unlike most previous technological advancements. While earlier innovations generated excitement and skepticism, few have prompted such extreme predictions of either a utopian future or an impending catastrophe.
AI has evoked a deep human response, with many feeling compelled to engage in discussions about its implications—perhaps more than with any other technology in history. This is partly due to AI’s unique potential and power, but also because it challenges some of our most fundamental assumptions about the world and our place within it.
In this essay, I will explore the concept of “ontological shock,” which refers to the confusion and disorientation that arise when our basic understanding of reality is subverted. AI is a powerful source of ontological shock because it forces us to reconsider our long-held views of ourselves and the world, and adjust our worldview to accommodate this new reality.
Understanding Ontological Shock
Ontology refers to the fundamental ways we understand and categorize the world. For most of us, life unfolds in a reasonably predictable manner, providing what sociologist Anthony Giddens calls “ontological security”—a sense of continuity and order in our experiences. The sun rises, familiar faces greet us, and life follows expected patterns.
However, certain events can profoundly disrupt this sense of security. National crises, such as the collapse of an empire, or severe mental illness, like psychosis, can upend our basic assumptions about the world. Psychiatrist John Mack used the term “ontological shock” to describe the impact on individuals who believe they have experienced alien abduction, as they grapple with a reality that challenges their understanding of existence.
Similarly, the emergence of AI confronts us with a destabilizing challenge to our worldview. Much of the public conversation around AI seems focused on preserving our ontological security rather than engaging with the deeper implications AI presents.
Ontological Assumptions Through Time
Our assumptions about reality are often invisible, like glasses through which we see the world but rarely take off to examine. To understand how AI might challenge these assumptions, it helps to look at how past societies understood the world.
For example, in hunter-gatherer cultures, animism was a dominant worldview, with intelligence and spirit seen as inherent in natural features like rivers, trees, and animals. Roman civilization, meanwhile, was characterized by a pantheon of gods that influenced every aspect of life, while medieval Christianity simplified this structure, placing God at the top of a rigid hierarchy with humans uniquely endowed with souls.
In the modern era, however, the collective loss of religious faith has resulted in a sharp divide between humans and the rest of the natural world. For the last century and a half, this boundary—between humans as intelligent beings and everything else as “things”—has been under attack, most notably by Darwin’s theory of evolution.
AI and the Collapse of Ontological Boundaries
AI challenges the last standing distinction between humans and objects. If AI can think, then the barrier between humans and things collapses, shaking our understanding of what it means to be human.
The result is widespread ontological shock, as many struggle to reconcile the implications of AI. The debate about AI often remains stuck in dualism, forcing us into two unsatisfying choices: either AI is “just a thing,” or it has achieved human-like intelligence and should be treated as one of us. A third, increasingly popular, idea is that AI might soon attain god-like superintelligence, sparking apocalyptic or utopian visions.
A New Approach
These options fail to capture the true complexity of the situation. To address AI more thoughtfully, we must move beyond rigid human-thing dualism and embrace the idea that AI may represent an entirely new category of being. AI might possess a form of intelligence and existence that doesn’t fit into our traditional understanding of human or machine, but instead calls for a broader conceptual framework.
By rethinking our ontological assumptions and acknowledging that intelligence and being come in many forms, we can begin to understand AI on its own terms, rather than forcing it into outdated categories. This ontological openness will be key to navigating the profound shifts AI is bringing to our world.
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