A Crisis of Agency

Autonomous AI agents now perform tasks such as answering emails, sending texts, and deleting code repositories. Chatbot-generated language increasingly replaces human-written words across search results. AI systems generate music, videos, poetry and prose, build websites, conduct research, make transactions, and write workplace memos. These outputs circulate through internet infrastructure governed by black-box algorithms that train computers to sound more human and engage users. Human users interact by typing, scrolling, and waiting while computer-to-computer exchanges drive information flows. The resulting speed and stakes contribute to malaise, hostility toward the industry, and cases of AI psychosis, alongside a subtler paranoia about manipulation via stealth marketing, bot armies, and paid clippers.

Read at The Atlantic