OpenAI Interest Groups

Creative and Cultural Production 

Wavv

Founder / Chief Architect @ Wavv

CODAME + TeamSystem

Co-Founder + CTO @ CODAME + TeamSystem

Rutgers University

Founder @ Playform AI - Professor @ Rutgers University

Moodelier

AI Creative Educator, Event Organizer, Community Builder @ Moodelier

The Federal Public Service of Canada

Senior Executive Advisor on AI @ The Federal Public Service of Canada

Le Parisien

Head of data & innovation @ Le Parisien

my own desk

novelist @ my own desk

Representation Matters

Founder @ Representation Matters

RENDRD Media

Director of Operations, Partner @ RENDRD Media

I want to open a conversation about a crucial yet often overlooked issue: our modern crisis of alienation. Large-scale systems—governments, bureaucracies, corporations, and even our schools—often reduce individuals to mere data points, emphasizing metrics over the nuanced humanity of the people they represent. This isn’t just a capitalism-versus-socialism issue; it emerges whenever we attempt to “scale” or manage human interactions. James Scott, in 

, describes how institutions oversimplify our complex realities into narrow categories in the name of efficiency or control. This happens often even with the best of intentions!

A similar flattening effect arises through market logic and technological adoption, where “choice” and “networks” are seen as the defining measure of human empowerment. Take dating apps, for instance: their goal is to connect people, yet they can end up warping our perceptions of what’s “normal,” amplifying obsessions with personal validation and magnifying individual imperfections. The fact that many casually refer to it all as a “dating market” would have seemed shockingly dystopian just a couple decades ago—but now, we treat it as the norm. The consequences of this problem manifest elsewhere in extremely pervasive ways.

Although technology can be a powerful force for good, it also has a troubling track record of exacerbating these trends. Social media and, more recently, AI often amplify our sense of impersonal detachment. Even if material conditions improve, the intangible qualities of belonging and recognition continue to erode.

Can we harness AI to foster genuine human connection and reverse—rather than accelerate—this crisis of alienation?

 Are there ways to integrate AI into social systems—healthcare, education, governance—that can respect our complexities instead of merely streamlining us into neat, one-dimensional metrics?

The Alienation Crisis: Can AI Bridge the Gap or Deepen the Divide?

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