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Unraveling the Singularity - Ethics and Emotion in the Age of AI. “True harmony is not found in the absence of conflict.” - Dan Mena While I was writing this article, a memorable passage from my professional life came to mind when I worked at Ford. During my visits to customers, my indispensable tool was the Guia 4 Rodas. Every year, I bought the updated version, a ritual that made my journey easier. I remember one particular visit where, in order to find the address, I had to stop and interact with four or five different people. Each of them gave me a valuable tip, a note, a story. These exchanges weren't just about addresses; they were small moments of connection with others, which enriched my experience. Today, when I compare this reality of 20 or 30 years ago with the use of GPS on cell phones, I see a paradox. With today's technology, I've reached hundreds of destinations in Brazil and abroad without interacting with anyone. The efficiency is undeniable, but what have I lost along the way? Where once there was a dialog and a journey, now there is an individual and digital silence. This distancing brings me a certain nostalgia for the past. Where interactions, full of nuances and uncertainties, were replaced by the certainty and precision of machines. This transformation raises questions about what it means to be human in a world increasingly mediated by technology. This is the context in which we find ourselves today as we explore the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and Psychoanalysis: a world where the search for efficiency can paradoxically distance us from the social relationships that define us. Happy reading. “The quest for efficiency can silence human desire.” - Dan Mena Exploring the Future of this Ambiguous Relationship. The movie Transcendence - The Revolution, directed by Wally Pfister, offers a thought-provoking reflection on the fusion of our intelligence with artificial intelligence (AI). The plot revolves around Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp), a renowned AI researcher who, facing certain death, transfers his consciousness to a computer system, triggering events that challenge the ethical and philosophical limits of the technological age. This narrative illustrates the concept of the computer singularity, where machines surpass our capacity, and raises crucial questions: to what extent can AI optimize contemporary life without dehumanizing it? The Duality of Progress, its Benefits and Dangers. Quantum computers explore the supposed quest for a better world, which can paradoxically lead to the loss of jobs and freedom. In the plot, by curing diseases and improving biology, the AI-Caster suppresses the autonomy of individuals, revealing a central dilemma: is artificial intelligence morally neutral or will its power be corrupted by the desire for control? This question is intertwined with psychoanalysis, which teaches us about the complexity of desire and the inevitability of suffering. We are rapidly being replaced by machines and automated systems, and this is a growing trend in many areas. In the transport sector, Uber is revolutionizing the way we travel, connecting drivers and passengers via a digital platform, reducing the need for traditional cabs. In the tourism and accommodation sector, Airbnb allows homeowners to rent their homes directly to guests, significantly reducing the need for real estate agents and transforming the real estate market. Automation is also present in customer service, where chatbots and virtual assistants, such as Siri and Alexa, are taking over functions that used to be performed by secretaries. In addition, automatic checkouts in supermarkets have become increasingly common, allowing customers to make their purchases without the need for a human cashier. Cleaning robots, such as Roomba, are a practical alternative for maintaining environments, taking over from traditional cleaning services. In corporate environments, automatic coffee machines allow employees to prepare their drinks easily, without having to rely on a coffee maker. Parcel delivery is also undergoing a transformation with the use of drones. Companies like Amazon are testing this technology to make logistics more agile and efficient, reducing the need for couriers. Finally, among other things, software-based robotic diagnostic and surgical intervention techniques are revolutionizing the field of medicine. For this reason, the film Transcendence serves as a warning about the challenges that artificial intelligence imposes on us, highlighting the need to balance this technological progress. In this context, the fusion of psychoanalysis and AI becomes essential in order to understand the emotional implications of this supposed evolution, suggesting that, when facing these advances, we must remember the richness of our experience, which cannot be reduced to the whim of technology. “Automation can be an invitation to emotional emptiness.” - Dan Mena The Paradox of Efficiency and the Danger of Suppressing Imperfection. At the end of the 19th century, Freud revolutionized the understanding of the mind by founding psychoanalysis. For the first time in history, the mysteries of the unconscious were given a role, and a place in fact, which had hitherto been denied. With the introduction of concepts such as desire, repression and the meaning of dreams, he transformed the way we see psychological suffering today, paving the way for an understanding of subjectivity, of being, and of the internal conflicts that shape us. More than a century later, we are facing a new revolution: the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Just as psychoanalysis proposed and launched a confrontation with the dominant views of the Victorian era, AI is now urging us to establish the limits of what is cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally possible. Freud pointed out that “I am not master of my own house”. Our actions and desires are mostly guided by irrational and unknown forces. At the heart of our existence, it inhabits what escapes our reason: repressed desires, unconscious impulses and a constant inner struggle. We are marked by a constant pressure between primitive stimuli and the demands of society. A question arises: can a machine, no matter how advanced, understand this tension? Can an AI encompass and embrace what even we ourselves cannot decipher? We can also ask ourselves: how can AI, driven by logic and predictability, deal with this irrational side that is so characteristic of our fantasy? How could an algorithm understand what cannot always be verbalized? The promise of AI, with its appeal to efficiency, control and predictability, seems to suggest that our problems, mistakes, failures and suffering - can be eliminated. But, as Freud warned us, suffering is part and parcel of our condition. By trying to escape it, we run the risk of distancing ourselves from ourselves. Could it be that by trying to suppress imperfection, AI isn't trying to dehumanize us? “The absence of flaws dehumanizes our existence.” - Dan Mena Lacan would tell us that desire is never fully satisfied, and that any attempt to suppress this aspect of the psyche inevitably leads to alienation. The promise of an AI that optimizes and controls everything creates the illusion of a world without lack - but if we eliminate lack, what would happen to desire? And without it, what would be left of our humanity? This amalgamation of the two brings us to another disturbing reflection: how far can technology go without erasing what defines us? In trying to solve our emotional and psychological dilemmas, AI may be erasing what is most essential in us: the imperfection, the search, and the incompleteness that moves and drives us. “Authentic connection resists the cold logic of algorithms.” - Dan Mena Human Fragility and the Danger of Overcoming. The challenges for psychoanalysis are becoming increasingly evident: what is the place of subjectivity in a world where algorithms can predict behavior? Lacan, when discussing desire, reminds us that “desire is the desire of the Other”, meaning that it can never be completely satisfied or predicted. AI, on the other hand, operates with data and predictions, trying to fill gaps with ready-made answers and immediate solutions. This paradox raises another question: if technology aims to eliminate deprivation, what happens to the intangible, desire and subjectivity? The psychoanalyst Elisabeth Roudinesco raises concerns about our future. She mentions that “by attempting to transcend the limits of the body and mind, we may lose what fundamentally makes us human.” This thought aligns with post-humanist debates, advocating for the creation of a new species—a reformed “post-human race,” immune to imperfection. But what would happen to the dimension of the unconscious in such a scenario? Suffering and lack, as constitutive elements of being, and the attempt to erase them, could lead to even greater alienation. In this context, can AI replace abstraction, or is there something inherently ours that machines will never replicate? However, unlike previous revolutions, which aimed to ease life in terms of materiality and productivity, the current one directly interferes with society, creating the ability to alter biology using biotechnology, nanotechnology, nanomaterials, and primarily CRISPR-Cas9: a gene-editing technology that allows for the precise modification of DNA sequences. But how far can or should these transformations go? What’s at stake is not just scientific development but our very nature, entangled with the ethical dilemmas emerging in this new era. “AI cannot grasp the complexity of the self.” - Dan Mena Defining the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We are witnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution, known as 4.0, characterized by a combination of advances that are blurring the boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. It encompasses fields such as AI, robotics, nanotechnology, biotechnology, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, quantum computing, and other innovations. Previous revolutions were based on mechanization, electrification, and automation. This one differs by focusing on advanced automation and the integration of intelligent systems capable of autonomously performing complex tasks. This transformation promises to upend the way we live, work, and interact, creating new business models, production chains, and social dynamics. One of its central aspects is the massive use of data, interconnecting devices and processes in real-time, and the ability of machines to make decisions based on large volumes of information. However, it also brings ethical and social challenges, such as the replacement of jobs by automated digital systems and the reconfiguration of economic and social relations. Thus, I question: to what extent can we allow ourselves to believe that AI can free us from our limitations? And what if, in the end, the dehumanization of technology is merely a reflection of our own inability to face what constitutes us? “Control is an illusion that ignores the unconscious.” - Dan Mena The Promise of Post-Humanism: Liberation or Self-Destruction? As we contemplate transhumanism, this modern dream of transcendence, we are inevitably led to recognize a desire that has resided at the core of our primitive thought since time immemorial: the yearning to overcome limitations. Between the lines of each scientific progress, we find a Freudian echo of unconscious drives. The promise of merging being and machine is nothing more than a contemporary attempt to heal the essential lack that permeates our condition. By exalting AI as a natural extension of progress, proponents of this concept present us with a mirage. What Lacan counters in his analysis of desire warns us that nothing will fill this void, which is particularly constitutive of our existential premise. Like the unconscious, it is a force that escapes logic, predictability—it is the shadow that follows us beyond the reach of reason. “The search for immortality reflects the fear of death.” - Dan Mena If we advance toward another vision, post-humanism attempts to transcend the very biology of man, creating a “post-human race” free from the weaknesses we carry. I believe we have already witnessed the horror of this in the Holocaust. Under this lens, are they promising to liberate us from suffering and imperfection? In his text The Future of an Illusion (1927), Freud alludes that religion emerges as a way to cope with existential anxiety and impotence in the face of uncontrollable forces of nature. The primitive man, unable to understand or control natural phenomena, created deities that supposedly offered protection and meaning amid ancestral chaos. This belief acted as a sort of psychic defense, an attempt to find comfort in a higher order that cared for his well-being and survival. Just as a child turns to the father figure for protection, early humans projected this image onto a deity, an entity that somehow provided explanations for the uncertain and threatening world they inhabited. However, the desire to escape pain is inextricably linked to the death drive—translated in psychoanalysis as the “instinct to return to the inorganic,” reflecting the unconscious desire to return to the original state of “non-life,” where there was no pain, conflict, or tension. This would manifest through self-destructive, aggressive, or repetitive behaviors that seem to defy the logic of self-preservation, such as destructive tendencies, suicide, violence, and ultimately, the desire for the “absolute rest” that death would bring. Post-humanism, by proposing this radical break with our nature, evokes the death drive, revisiting us disguised under the cloak of digital evolution. “What makes us human may be eclipsed by technological ambition.” - Dan Mena There is a dimension of our experience that machines will never be able to reach: the Real. This is the realm of the unspeakable, that which escapes symbolization, the territory where our traumas reside and what is, by nature, unrepresentable. The immateriality, abstraction, and intangibility of our nature, with its labyrinth of desires, fears, and fantasies, cannot be reduced to algorithms. No matter how advanced AI becomes, it will remain confined to the symbolic world — while we, in our essence, are traversed by the Real, by that which cannot be codified, calculated, or predicted. “Emotions cannot be coded into algorithms.” - Dan Mena And so, I ask: what would remain of the human when its vulnerability is eliminated? If AI promises us a life free of error and anguish, isn’t that the denial of the very experience that constitutes us? In trying to tame the chaos that dwells within us, we risk losing our own definition: imperfection, unattainable desire, and, above all, the ability to dream. That’s why I believe the so-called virtue promised by machines is an illusion that, in the end, could alienate us from our reason for being and existing. The Illusion of Harmony and the Suppressed Emotions of Artificial Order In the movie *The Giver* (2014), directed by Phillip Noyce, the utopian society portrayed has eliminated intense human emotions, painful memories, and freedom of choice to ensure apparent social harmony. One of the protagonists, young Jonas, is chosen to receive the memories of the past and, upon experiencing what was lost, begins to question the excellence of this now fully controlled world. This can be seen as an analogy to our contemporary relationship with AI. In the film, the community lives under a structure that suppresses the unpredictable, much like modern algorithms that aim to control and predict our behavior. Just as AI seeks to optimize our lives by removing uncertainties, Jonas’s society suppresses emotional chaos in the name of order. We are governed by unconscious forces, and total control over them is an absolute illusion. In *The Giver*, the elimination of emotions and memories reflects the attempt to create a society where the “Real” is ignored, replaced by a system that suppresses immateriality in favor of a technological fiction. Yet, just as Jonas discovers when receiving the memories of life without pain, he realizes the emptiness of a life without meaning. Therefore, when we remove suffering, we also lose love, beauty, contemplation, and the depth of our experience. AI, despite its efficiency, cannot replace what is essentially ours: the ability to feel, to touch, to err, and to desire, eliminating the nuances of an authentic life. This reminds us that the true being that inhabits us cannot be fully captured or regulated by machines. Human Connection: In Search of Authentic Relationships in the Digital Age. The essential difference between AI and psychoanalysis lies in how each deals with desire. By nature, AI responds to resolve demands. However, by trying to satisfy all needs immediately, it eliminates the possibility for desire to flourish and expand. Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, does not offer ready-made answers; it merely allows the subject to come into contact with their own singularity, thus guiding them. This distinction is fundamental when thinking about our role as analysts. We are in a position not to provide solutions but to create a space where the subject confronts the Real and truly elaborates their own desires. AI is programmed to solve problems efficiently but cannot handle our subjective complexity. In an article published in *Time* magazine titled “Be Careful What You Wish For” (2013), Sherry Turkle highlights our deep-rooted connection to the unconscious, provoking a reflection on the intersection between technology and intangibility. In her assertion that “we are creatures of history, deep psychology, and complex relationships,” she reminds us that our essence lies not only in rational capabilities but also in emotions, in the stories we live, and in the interactions that shape our lives. In this context, the “robotic moment” that Turkle mentions is not just a technical phenomenon but a call to consciousness. Confronted with the trials and pleasures of the digital age, she invites us not to become passive spectators of this transformation. The challenge, therefore, is twofold: we must recognize the benefits of artificiality while remaining vigilant about the risks of progressive dehumanization. “The hermetic nature of human passion escapes AI’s logic.” - Dan Mena The question that arises is: to what extent are we willing to sacrifice our rich complexity in the name of efficiency? Technology can certainly offer impressive conveniences and solutions, but it should not lead us to renounce the emotions and affections that characterize us. As psychoanalyst Paul Verhaeghe reminds us, “mental health is not just a matter of functionality, but of genuine connection with others and with oneself.” Thus, the fight to maintain this connection becomes imperative. We must reflect deeply, while there is still time, on the consequences of allowing technology to replace authentic interactions. It is a serious task to challenge this trend. It implies creating spaces where dialogue and empathy can flourish, where we can share our vulnerabilities rather than merely consume or delegate to machines. The balance between technology and essence is not only desirable; it is a requirement for the preservation of this world we have inherited from our Creator. How will we shape and pass on this future to our children and grandchildren? The responsibility is in our hands: will we be protagonists or mere spectators of a narrative that may lead us to the abyss of dehumanization? This reflection is not merely a critique but an invitation to action. Let us strive to cultivate a future where technology serves as an ally in promoting our story, rather than as a factor that compromises it. The choice is before us: what do we truly want for our journey as individuals and as a collective? May we seek answers and wisdom that reaffirm our condition amidst a revolution that is only just beginning. “The 'robotic moment' calls us to consciousness, not passivity.” - Dan Mena To the poem; Algorithms and Dreams. By Dan Mena. As I write, my mind blossoms, The paradox of efficiency, so cold, so sure, Hides a silence that leaves the heart unsure. Where there once was dialogue and nuances to beat, Now, a digital echo, solitude seems to greet. Transcendence shows us a disconnected future, Between machines and humans, the dilemma is obscure. AI advances, healing, but at what price, By suppressing autonomy, is that truly wise? In the dance of automation, humanity fades, In the quest for control, what fate is portrayed? Desire is a labyrinth, full of pain, But through mistakes, through feeling, love we gain. Freud teaches us of the deep unconscious, Between impulses and norms, we battle in this world. Can a machine grasp the confusion, Of hidden desires, of our human condition? In the Fourth Revolution, what are we crafting? A future where connections are collapsing? The lure of post-humanism is tempting, But are we losing our own path, forgetting? In The Giver, harmony is cold, Without pain or love, life feels melancholy and old. Between control and emotion, the line is thin and frail, AI cannot fill the void in our tale. Let us reflect and ponder then, On the relationships we can nurture and mend. Amidst machines, may we never forget, That to be human is to think, to feel, to love, and to beget. Thus, technology can be an ally, But never at the cost of life gone awry. May tomorrow hold a sincere space, Between emotion and reason, a path toward grace. Until next time, Dan Mena. Supervisory Member of the National Council of Psychoanalysis since 2018 — CNP 1199. Member of the Brazilian Council of Psychoanalysis since 2020 — CBP 2022130. Doctor Honoris Causa in Psychoanalysis by Christian Education University - Florida Department of Education - USA. 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