سینا صبار

AI is developing so fast that philosophers of technology could not keep up with philosophizing it. AI promises to augment human capabilities, offering new insights and efficiencies. However, it also raises concerns about diminished autonomy and decision-making skills. Balancing AI's potential with ethical considerations is crucial to ensure it acts as a tool that enriches, rather than diminishes, human agency. In the present study, we interviewed a group of 62 tech-savvy professionals from Iran's technology sector to see how they think about the relationship between a much more powerful AI in the future and its relationship with human agency. Since these participants were -supposedly- more acquaint with AI and its capabilities, we decided interviewing them would yield important insights. After qualitatively analyzing our data, we came into five main categories of perspectives on AI and future of human agency: Augmentation and Enhancement, Displacement and Dependency, Collaboration and Partnership, Control and Ethics, and, Transformation and Transcendence. For each category, we provided examples from our interviews.

Since its inception in the late 1960s and especially following its commercialization in the mid-1990s, the Internet has experienced exponential growth. As artificial intelligence (AI) has surpassed previously inconceivable boundaries, it has become evident that AI both poses a threat to aspects of human existence and offers potential avenues for a more human-centric future. This paper contends that a digital existence, by its intrinsic nature, engenders a sense of discontentment. Paradoxically, within this digital realm, remedies emerge that elude offline experiences. While chatbots initially served as sources of amusement, their capacity to provide accessible and dependable counseling services has now become indispensable. Our assertion is that in the years to come, as chatbot technology advances further in sophistication, hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide will gain access to improved lives through the provision of free counseling services. Consequently, therapy will