A Note From The CAI Co-Chairs

by Todd Essig, PhD and Amy Levy, PsyD

In our Co-Chairs’ Note in the last issue, we deviated from mentioning Council projects and activities to address a pressing need — focusing on our view that AI is developing in “specific—and increasingly authoritarian—ideological and institutional matrices” requiring “community and perseverance” lest we lose touch with “the deeper conditions—emotional and political—that give meaning and value to what we do.” In this issue, we return to our more usual format by spotlighting the CAI Workshop project.

The CAI Workshop Series Team is led by Dr. Fred Gioia. The purpose of the workshop series team is to produce educational content at the intersections of psychoanalysis and AI, to help people, both in the field and not, to study and explore the implications of AI for the human psyche. We aim to present a variety of international viewpoints while also using the Workshop Series to showcase work being done by CAI members. At the end of this Note, you will find a listing of all the videos currently in the CAI Workshop Series YouTube Channel.

The Next CAI Workshop

We invite you to join us for a free online workshop — “Humans, Minds, and Brains: A Trialogue at the Edge of AI Possibility” — on Sunday, July 20th from 12–2 PM Eastern / 9–11 AM Pacific. This CAI Workshop brings together the three of us (Fred, Amy, and Todd). Each of us has overlapping but also quite distinct perspectives on the transformative intersections of AI and psychoanalysis.

We agree that the AI revolution is no longer just a matter of speculative fiction or technical innovation—it is an evolving cultural—and psychological—reality that is reshaping how we live, work, and relate. It promises historically unprecedented transformations. Many artificial intelligence entities already demonstrate utilitarian value for education, business, science, and professional life. Others promise emotionally resonant relational experiences and are used for companionship, romance, and, yes, even therapy. A common thread is the performance and simulation of expertise, empathy, concern, and sentience. They offer awe-inspiringly accurate stochastic mimicry.

In contrast, the psychoanalytic tradition has also always revered the authentic, the actuality and not the mere performance of truth, of embodied minds, intimacy, and the complexities of the unconscious. This CAI Workshop will consider the accelerating AI revolution from our three different psychoanalytic perspectives, asking: How do we understand the nature of these emerging alien intelligences? What risks does AI pose to how we experience ourselves and each other? Why have we created AI? What human needs does it meet? In short, what and who are we becoming and why? And, most critically, how might the psychoanalytic tradition positively influence the AI revolution because, after all, the future is not yet written.

This workshop continues and extends a panel originally presented at the “Irreverence” conference hosted by the William Alanson White Institute in May. That earlier panel was an experiment in both form and content. Rather than offering a sequence of traditional presentations, each of the presenters shared 1000-word essays with each other a month in advance—and then responded to each other’s work with an additional 1000 words that were kept private until the day of the panel. The result was a genuinely spontaneous, searching, and at times irreverent conversation, echoing the subversive spirit that has long been part of psychoanalytic tradition. While some of that spontaneity cannot be replicated, our goal in this upcoming workshop is to continue the creative exchange and invite participants to join in a lively dialogue.

Registration is open to all and free of charge. Please register here: Zoom Registration Link  [https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Eem411MNSsihll826EDmHA]

(and while we have your attention here’s a reminder that it’s not too late to complete our survey of AI attitudes and use patterns. If you haven’t completed the survey here’s the link: https://pace.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bDiyK2QO37FusqW )

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Contents of the CAI Workshop Series YouTube Channel

• “Artificial Intelligence and Actual Psychoanalysts” with Amy Levy, Danielle Knafo, Todd Essig, and “AI Ada” an AI discussant. This panel explores the range of containment possibilities offered by AI, the drives behind AI creation, the effects of AI simulating human relating, and the need for a new psychoanalytic activism to explore and influence the emerging AI age.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P6WJGPlr6M&t=353s\
• “Id, Robot” with Mark Solms. He presents an accessible version of Karl Friston’s free energy principle as context for his project of developing “artificial consciousness,” that’s right, a machine that actually feels. The workshop includes active engagement and questioning about this provocative project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJBggncTlYw&t=6248s
• “Resistance to AI: Does it matter?” with CAI’s co-chair Amy Levy. Based on her soon to be released book, The New Other: Alien Intelligence and the Innovation Drive she explores how, as a result of increasingly immersive and controlling interactive AI-driven technologies, we are morphing from human animals into “digital people.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twBatrYNTiI&t=293s
• “Artificial Intelligence, Psychoanalytic Friend or Foe?” with Todd Essig and Sherry Turkle. The CAI’s founder and co-chair and the noted author and psychoanalytic ethnographer of digital culture engage questions of AI, ethics, and an emerging future we may not want. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXNc4DgQpis&t=8916s
• “Will Psychoanalysis, AI, and Philosophy Collide, or Enrich Each Other” with Luca Possati and Amy Levy. An exploratory and deeply philosophical conversation about death-bots, the transformation spectrum, and how psychoanalysis helps understanding AI and AI’s algorithmic unconscious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WNErqnjGDQ
• “Epistemic Breaks, Artificial Intelligence, and the End of the Social Bond” with Fernando Castrillón. Using the concept of an “epistemic break” and a discussion of the film Solaris, this workshop illustrates how artificial reproductions of reality can lead to madness and isolation, ultimately arguing for conscious disengagement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjVg3xQ2bI0

We invite you to stop by, view our workshops, and subscribe to our channel so that you won’t miss future contributions. Here’s the link again: https://www.youtube.com/@APSACAI

For more information, please email [email protected].