In the Digital Age, the Need to Remain Human Is Stronger Than Ever
Patricia Martin joins Jonathan Church to discuss her new book that brings Jung’s ideas about the self and the persona into the age of social media and AI. Although concerned about technology’s toll on personal identity, she argues that AI may yet have a liberating power.
In a world in which everything we say and do can be recorded and posted online, it is only natural to treat likes, shares, and follower counts as primary sources of self-esteem. Yet the same conditioning makes it just as easy to forget the synthetic reality behind the blue screen. And the more power we cede to the algorithms, the more we risk losing the ability to shape our sense of self from within.
According to Patricia Martin, author of the new book Will the Future Like You?: Reflections on the Age of Hyper-Reinvention, our increasingly digitalized lives will be accompanied by pain. As many have already discovered, there is a growing sense of unease and emptiness permeating society.
At the same time, Martin gives reason for hope. Drawing on Carl Jung’s ideas about the self and the persona, Martin argues that artificial intelligence has the potential to free up precious time for the most human of pursuits: considering our nature and pondering the meaning of life. To rescue the self from the anomie of online life, we must once again make the case for being human.
Below is a transcript of the conversation between Martin and Merion West senior editor Jonathan Church, edited for length and clarity.
Timeless reading in a fleeting world.
