Me, Myself, and AI: Why Our Individualistic Society Will Struggle With Artificial Intelligence

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Last week we began a short series exploring some of the societal shifts that have taken place in the last century or so that will undoubtedly impact the world of AI.

This week: Why AI-infused individualism is a challenge for society.

The Western world—untethered from biblical morality—is growing more self-obsessed by the day. Cultural anthropologist Richard Shweder suggests that there are three dominant ethics in the societies around the world:

Ethics of autonomy: Societies with an ethic of autonomy are those who believe that they are, first and foremost, comprised of autonomous people with wants, needs, and preferences. They believe that people should be able to fulfill them as they see fit.

Ethics of community: Community-based ethics believe that, first and foremost, people are members of larger entities such as families, teams, armies, companies, and nations.

Ethics of divinity: An ethic of divinity believes that, first and foremost, one’s place is within the big picture of a divine will.¹

The ethic of autonomy is perhaps the least congruent with biblical values, and yet it is the dominant ethic of the Western world. In fact, studies show that ethics of autonomy are gaining traction around the world. Globally, individualistic worldviews have increased by about 12% since 1960 (incidentally, around the same time as the normalization of the sexual revolution).

Igor Grossmann, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Waterloo, believes the rise of individualistic tendencies in the U.S. correlates with the shift from manual labour to office jobs, where “Americans gained education and wealth, both of which promote self-direction and ultimately facilitate individualism.² With the invention of the car, geographical mobility increased, but it also meant that many generationally tight-knit communities were dispersed. Socioeconomic improvements led to increased leisure time and disposable income, allowing people to focus more on personal growth. Though the “self-help” genre can perhaps trace its roots as far back as the publication of Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, it experienced a mainstream explosion in the 1960s and 1970s.³

The tendency toward individualism increased.

As wealth, geographical mobility, and an increased focus on the self gripped society, it’s no coincidence that approaches to sexual ethics began to change—only, with each shift, society was nudged into a world untethered from the collectivism of the past. As we’ve covered in other articles, the ubiquity of social media has made these tendencies worse. And that’s a problem.

Firstly, individualism is a breeding ground for relativism—the idea that there is no objective truth, which is highly problematic, which I wrote about in detail here:

It’s unsurprising that, in a highly subjective society where the self comes first, there is rampant distrust in traditional communal institutions (e.g., churches and governments). Rising individualism also correlates with unhealthy self-obsession and, in turn, perfectionism. Will Storr writes:

Psychologists analyzed data from over 40,000 university students across the U.S., U.K. and Canada and found levels of perfectionism between 1989 and 2016 had risen substantially. Over the period, the extent to which people attached ‘an irrational importance to being perfect’ had gone up by 10 per cent. Meanwhile, the extent to which they felt that had to ‘display perfection to secure approval’ had grown by a startling 33 per cent.⁴

Although we have far fewer friends than we did 30 years ago, our desire for approval is no different.⁵ Instead, we’re striving for the attention of plaudits we don’t know by trying to meet unrealistic expectations and falling into depression at alarming rates when we inevitably fail. At our root, we’re innately social—it’s why Jonathan Haidt describes humans as “10 per cent bee”—but our growing individualism is making us lonely.⁶

Just as we saw last week with the so-called “sexual revolution,” these societal changes make a big difference when considering the proliferation of AI into our world.

Artificial intelligence—the “Great Exacerbater” of our time—infused with rampant individualism promises only increased loneliness and societal incongruence.

Why have a meaningful human connection when you can simply chat with an AI chatbot that will say what you want it to say? Why engage in challenging dialogue about hot-button issues when your AI can spoon-feed you pre-chewed, carefully curated information that keeps you in your “happy place?” Why learn emotional intelligence when ChatGPT can mindlessly replicate some semblance of it for you—as long as you hide behind that digital veil, of course.

The answer is simple, straightforward, and hard for an individualistic world to hear: although genuine connection is hard work, the rewards are great.

In fact, they’re essential.

Just as we saw last week, it’s for this reason that we, as the Church, must prioritize meaningful connections, community, and pastoral care. It’s the reason that this is the first of my seven guidelines for churches in an AI-driven world.

The Western world is running a relational deficit, but at some point, it will catch up, and the Church—operating in the fullness of its relational calling—needs to be ready to step in.

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Read more here:

1. R. A. Shweder et al., “The ‘Big Three’ of Morality (Autonomy, Community, Divinity) and the ‘Big Three’ Explanations of Suffering,” Morality and Health (1997): 138, 139.

2. Society Began Shifting towards Individualism More than a Century Ago,” Waterloo News, last modified February 5, 2015, accessed February 2, 2024, https://uwaterloo.ca/news/news/society-began-shifting-towards-individualism-more-century.

3. Mercé Mur Effing, “The Origin and Development of Self-Help Literature in the United States: The Concept of Success and Happiness, an Overview,” Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies 31, no. 2 (2009): 125–141.

4. Will Storr, Selfie: How the West Became Self-Obsessed (London: Picador, 2018), 17.

5. Martin Armstrong, “Friendships: Less Is Now More,” World Economic Forum, last modified November 3, 2022, accessed February 2, 2024, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/11/friendships-less-is-now-more/.

6. Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 2012), 218.