In today’s discussions about artificial intelligence, the focus usually falls on technology: efficiency, speed, and the ability to process large amounts of data. Yet the most significant change is happening elsewhere – in the human relationship with reality.
This topic was discussed on 6 March at the Future Forum debate Lithuania’s Intellectual Independence, initiated by the Future Committee of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania. Among the speakers was Professor Jolanta Zabarskaitė of Kazimieras Simonavičius University, who explored how technology is changing our relationship with the world, language, and thought.
AI is changing how people relate to reality
Professor Zabarskaitė argues that it is not enough to discuss only new AI tools, their benefits, or their risks. More importantly, we need to ask how these technologies are changing the way we understand the world, relate to knowledge, and create meaning.
In the past, people’s relationship with the world was based on direct experience, reflection, and the ability to describe what they saw and felt. Today, this is increasingly shaped by AI-driven algorithms. These systems do not simply select information. They also influence what we see, how we see it, and what we consider important.
“When the world reaches us already processed, filtered, and categorised, our own relationship with reality gradually weakens,” she says.
When language weakens, thinking weakens too
According to the professor, AI is changing not only the way we use information, but also the way we think.
“We are gradually losing the habit of interpreting phenomena because we no longer feel the same need to do so. As interpretation declines, vocabulary and language begin to shrink. This is not only a question of style. Our ability to think also weakens, because we lose the need to name complex things, build arguments, and disagree,” she says.
She stresses that language is more than a tool for sharing information. It is also a way of experiencing and understanding the world.
The growing use of AI-generated answers affects this directly. When people receive polished responses within seconds, they feel less need to search for their own words or shape their own thoughts. As a result, individual expression begins to fade.
The professor also notes a decline in the ability to sustain complex arguments, engage in discussion, and concentrate for longer periods. In an environment shaped by speed and fragmented content, deeper attention becomes harder to maintain.
Social sciences restore context and meaning
In this context, Professor Zabarskaitė sees a renewed importance of the social sciences. They help us understand how technology affects society, identity, language, social roles, and power relations.
“The social sciences are immensely important today because they teach people not simply to consume the world, but to understand it,” she says.
They restore what is often lost in the fast flow of information: context, connections, and meaning. They encourage people to ask essential questions such as: Why is this happening? What does it mean? Where are we heading?
AI can generate text, but only people create meaning
Professor Zabarskaitė emphasises that AI, however powerful, is not a creator in the human sense. It has no lived experience, no memory, no emotions. Yet these are the things from which literature, art, values, moral choices, and collective memory emerge.
For this reason, the key question today is not whether AI can speak and write correctly. The more important question is whether people, by relying on AI, risk losing their own power to speak, think, and remain themselves.
“The greatest risk today is not artificial intelligence itself. As a tool, it can be a very good assistant. The greatest risk is that people may no longer want to make the effort to understand their surroundings, observe them, discover new things, and experiment,” she says.
In the age of AI, the crucial question is what people themselves will choose. Will they continue to understand the world through their own eyes, their own language, and their own experience?
The answer will shape not only our relationship with technology, but also the vitality of language, the integrity of identity, and society’s ability to remain intellectually independent.
