Escaping the Matrix of Your Mind: AI as the Ultimate Red Pill

The Free Will Fallacy and Why AI Might Be Your Key to Freedom

Photo by Nick Tiemeyer on Unsplash

Do you feel free & in control of your life?

Does it matter to you if you are?

For me, it's something I value, it's so important to me.

But what if were to tell you, science is telling us, that this feeling of being able to be in control, or having choice - is an illusion most of the time?

And what if I told you that using AI could help us, help you to actually have more free will and choice?

Why You Don't Have Much Free Will

Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet's experiments in the 1980s showed that brain activity (specifically, the readiness potential) preceded conscious awareness of the decision to act by several hundred milliseconds.

This suggested that unconscious brain processes might be initiating actions before conscious decisions are made.

More recently in her book 'The Science of Fate' Neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow sums up the most recent research that seems to be increasingly confirming the fragility of the idea of free will.

The research suggests a sobering reality: our genetic makeup, established at birth, significantly shapes our future selves.

Our DNA appears to predetermine our susceptibility to various conditions, including mental health issues, weight problems, and addictive behaviours.

These predispositions are essentially encoded in our neural architecture.

Moreover, our decision-making process is heavily influenced by inherited traits from our parents and innate species-specific tendencies.

For instance, humans possess the unconscious ability to detect potential mates with complementary immune systems, a trait that enhances offspring survival.

The brain, given its constant high-level activity, conserves energy by relying on existing neural pathways rather than forming new ones.

This leads to a tendency to interpret new information through the lens of established biases.

Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash

Consequently, our perceptions, beliefs, and actions stem from a combination of biological constraints common to our species and our unique genetic and cognitive makeup.

It may trap some in cycles of harmful behaviour while hindering others from adjusting their perspectives in light of new evidence. i.e. cognitive dissonance.

So does this imply we have no free will at all? Not exactly. 

While Critchlow explains we can in principle alter our hard-wired behavioural tendencies, it requires significant cognitive effort few use in practice:

Once you have built up a perception of the world, you will ignore any information to the contrary. Your brain is already taking up about 20% of your energy, so changing the way that you think is going to be quite cognitively costly. And it might be quite socially costly too.

Using AI Could Help You Have More Free Will

So if science is saying we are more like machines than we would like with little free will, how can using machines like AI help us to have more free will?

While our genetic predispositions and neural wiring limit our free will, the integration of AI into our daily lives could actually help us use more of it. 

Here's some ways AI could potentially enhance our free will capacity…

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