[Paper Review] How AI-Centrism Alienates Humanity

David Matta's 2026 paper AI-Centrism, Human Alienation, and the Erosion of Meaning: Anthropomorphism and the Mystification of Artificial Intelligence points out that modern society has begun to use AI as a 'reference point' for evaluating human value and capability. The author names this 'AI-centrism (AI-centrism)' and analyzes how it undermines human existential meaning through a multilayered framework. 

AI-Centrism: The Invisible Gravity by Which Technology Defines Human Value
The AI-centrism Matta presents is closer to a background orientation that has permeated the horizon of our thinking than a specific ideology or policy. We often pose questions in educational or workplace settings such as "Can humans compete with AI?" or "How will humans maintain usefulness in the AI era?" The author criticizes the fact that these very questions overlook that AI performance is already being used as a reference point. Under AI-centrism, human intelligence, creativity, and efficiency are no longer understood within the meaning of life or self-relationships. Instead their value is measured according to how similar they are to the performance of artificial systems, or how complementary they are. This acts as invisible gravity that makes humans themselves understand themselves in terms of technological metrics, beyond technology instrumentalizing humans.

Anthropomorphization and Mystification: 'Promethean Shame' Born from Category Error
The paper cites anthropomorphization and mystification as major drivers accelerating AI-centrism. Conversational interfaces and use of human-like names lead users to mistakenly perceive AI as a subjective entity. In particular, popular narratives such as "AI is smarter than humans" commit a fatal category error of placing tool performance and human cognitive ability on the same level. The author borrows Günther Anders's concept of 'Promethean shame' to warn that the phenomenon of humans feeling inferior before the perfection of their own creations is deepening even further in the AI era. Human intelligence generates meaning combined with vulnerability, temporality, and corporeality, but AI intelligence exists only as numerically ranked categories with context removed. This method of abstracting and ranking intelligence flattens the unique existential value of humans.

Three-Stage Mechanism of Alienation: From Normative Drift to Project Misalignment
Matta structures the process by which AI-centrism alienates humans into three layers.

Normative Drift: A change occurring at the cultural level where technological values such as efficiency, scalability, and speed move to the center of social values without explicit debate. The representative case is when the purpose of education shifts toward 'adapting to an AI-based economy' rather than human cultivation.
Metric Displacement: Occurs at the evaluation level, the process by which metrics designed to measure tools (accuracy, output volume, etc.) transfer to the domain of human self-understanding. Humans come to evaluate themselves based on whether their creativity or learning ability is "faster than machines," which inevitably causes feelings of helplessness and anxiety.
Project Misalignment: The final result at the existential level. Human life is inherently a project pursuing meaning and consistency, but AI-centrism redirects this toward the external goal of system optimization. Even when success is achieved, it does not connect with one's inner values, leading to the loss of what Hartmut Rosa termed 'Resonance.'

 Hollowing Out the Space of Meaning Generation: AI Agents and Loss of Relationship
Recently emerged AI agents have begun to directly occupy the activity domains where humans have been generating meaning, going beyond being objects of comparison. Domains like psychological counseling and education are not simply task performance but ontological testimony of bearing pain together and relational practice of witnessing others' growth. The author argues that even if an AI counselor perfectly mimics the language of empathy, the presence of a 'subject who has lived life' is lacking. Functional metrics of counseling outcomes may be achieved, but the ontological fulfillment felt by human counselors and the existential recognition felt by clients disappear. Technology does not substitute for roles; it hollows out the very soil in which those roles could be meaningful.

Rebuilding the Human Question in the AI Era
What Matta ultimately emphasizes is not rejecting AI technology itself but correcting its 'misplaced centrality.' AI can demonstrate powerful performance as a tool, but cannot be the compass of values that guides human life. In educational settings, beyond technology adaptation education, ethical reasoning and self-reflection abilities must be strengthened, and at the technology design stage, interfaces that do not damage human self-esteem must be considered. The irresponsible rhetoric that "AI is smarter than humans" must stop, and the direction of questioning must turn to enable technological progress to contribute to human existential projects. To avoid becoming a society that is technically highly developed but semantically impoverished, we must move away from 'AI-centered' and restore 'human projects' to the center.