“The spread of AI into core tasks of decision-making has the capacity to fundamentally undermine societal resilience. A helpful lens for examining this problem is self-determination theory, which identifies competence, autonomy and relatedness as basic psychological needs that must be met to ensure human well-being. What makes the encroachment of AI so troubling is that it can undermine these needs while simultaneously ostensibly meeting them. AI offers a simulation of social connection (i.e., as a companion, therapist or adviser) and a superficial sense of agency (i.e., someone can cause something to happen by delegating to an agent that will follow their commands, but is then bound up in the alignment of the AI which may be at odds with true individual autonomy), or competence (i.e., someone thinks they can write but they have been deskilled and are over-reliant on the tool). AI’s capacity for simulating the meeting of these psychological needs could undermine society’s capacity for resilience.
Helping society be resilient requires devising ways to help individuals be resilient within organizations. Organizations, themselves, cannot be resilient if they don’t focus their policies and practices on supporting the three basic human psychological needs – competence, autonomy and relatedness – in authentic ways.
“The issue is further highlighted by contrasting individual perception and societal impact. We are drawn to the immediate, tangible benefits of AI on a personal level. We may feel competent using it, able to pursue our goals along with a new companion that can help out whenever we need it. These individual ‘benefits’ mask broader societal externalities, such as the erosion of trust and the thinning of authentic human interaction. Because these technologies are marketed and adopted at the individual scale, societal impacts remain largely unaddressed in any serious capacity that understands them as aggregate, collective and likely to deepen over a longer timeframe.
“People need to wake up to this as individuals and as leaders within their organizations if society is going to successfully adapt.
“Societal resilience to the allure and spell that AI has over individuals must be developed through education on the individual level and enforceable policy in support of it on the societal level. This education must provide the knowledge necessary for individuals to develop a genuinely effective level of autonomy. Everyone should understand when and how to use AI tools and work to recapture or retain their agency.
“But this isn’t enough. Individuals exist in organizations with various goals, some of which are focused on profit. Helping society be resilient requires devising ways to help individuals be resilient within organizations. Organizations, themselves, cannot be resilient if they don’t focus their policies and practices on supporting the three basic human psychological needs – competence, autonomy and relatedness – in authentic ways.
“Moreover, in order to support human resilience, society should develop approaches that demand and ensure that AI systems are required to be accountable to humans and maintain human connection and accessibility. It is possible that policies to support open-source AI systems may help facilitate the alignment of technology with individuals and help mitigate the undermining of human autonomy by corporate or sovereign AI systems.”
This essay was written in January 2026 in reply to the question: “AI systems are likely to begin to play a much more significant role in shaping our decisions, work and daily lives. How might individuals and societies embrace, resist and/or struggle with such transformative change? As opportunities and challenges arise due to the positive, neutral and negative ripple effects of digital change, what cognitive, emotional, social and ethical capacities must we cultivate to ensure effective resilience? What practices and resources will enable resilience? What actions must we take right now to reinforce human and systems resilience? What new vulnerabilities might arise and what new coping strategies are important to teach and nurture?” This and 200-plus additional essay responses are included in the 2026 report “Building a Human Resilience Infrastructure for the AI Age.”