Mental-Health and A.I. -A Paradigm of Human Mechanisation

Abstract

This paper analyses the reconfiguration of the relationship between technological apparatus and our mental lifeworld. Technological network apparatus, particularly algorithmic networks are absorbing large domains of our life into themselves. In the process, our sense of self-identity has become fragile. We keep feeling disoriented by the overload of technological acceleration in our life in form of messages, notifications, and new methods of algorithmic monitoring of our life. Our sensory perception of reality has been hegemonised by intelligent machines. In response, the mental-health discourse identifies new mental-illnesses and their treatment procedures. However, the mental-health discourse functions on certain underlying philosophical assumptions which limit its ability to understand the contemporary real mental-problems faced by human beings. It gets trapped in its own logic. While claiming to bring the patient back into normality, it only traps humans further in the processes of human mechanisation. This paper highlights some of these issues and introspects new ways of understanding the current problem by going beyond the mental-health discourse.