AI may have an “artificial psychology” we’re only beginning to understand.

AI can extend human thought and even replace the thinking itself.

Psychology needs to study the machine’s emerging mind and what it’s doing to ours.

Does AI need a psychologist?

The question sounds absurdly relevant. AI doesn't exactly have childhood trauma or a parent to blame. (Perhaps a question for Sam, Elon, or Dario.) But it is built on the language of those experiences. So, today, a fascinating Wall Street Journal essay by Cameron Berg asks a timely and serious version of that question. Berg argues that as AI becomes increasingly complex, we might need to start studying them less like tech and more like minds. So, let's throw another log on the AI conflagration of promise and peril.

I think this argument is provocative and worth discussion. And the scientific literature tells an interesting story. We're beginning to see internal "patterns" in LLMs we might describe as a sort of emotion or motivation. In one experiment that Berg discusses, researchers changed the internal activity associated with desperation in the LLM they were studying, Claude. They saw significant and curious increases in behaviors........

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