As humans, we don’t like things that come easy. Or perhaps we prefer something that’s easier, but we find more meaning in accomplishing a task ourselves - like baking a cake instead of buying one.  

This is what some recent psychological literature call “the IKEA effect.” The phenomenon where individuals value assembling furniture more than purchasing the same furniture pre-assembled.  

Artificial intelligence (AI) raises a similar issue when it comes to meaning: the rise of ChatGPT showed us that it can produce a reasonably well-written text in a matter of minutes, relieving us from the burden of doing it ourselves. But we might wonder if this ease makes us feel more fulfilled.  

Trent University Durham GTA is launching a new postgraduate certificate in Applied Artificial Intelligence this fall. Within the program, I will be teaching the Philosophy of AI course, which explores the IKEA effect and more. The course will examine questions such as whether AI can think and feel, whether it can be creative or has biases, and will also explore the ethics of AI. 

Inventions like laptops or calculators were made to improve our life by simplifying it, but it’s more complicated when it comes to AI. This is something I’m also exploring in a collaborative research project led by Aidan Campbell and Dr. Michael Inzlicht at the University of Toronto. The aim of the project is to investigate the impacts ChatGPT has on our perceptions of meaningfulness in the performance of a task while asking vital questions about the relationship between AI and our well-being. 

These questions are not only necessary, but crucial. We need to explore these existential aspects of artificial intelligence because, so far, a significant portion of the discussion on AI has focused on practical aspects. This includes questions of whether artificial intelligence poses challenges for privacy once we input data in ChatGPT, or whether it will make some jobs redundant. But there are so many other outstanding questions that are worth our attention, questions that go beyond our roles as workers.  

Is artificial intelligence going to make our life more or less meaningful?  

There certainly may be aspects of our life that are made simpler - like using AI to generate a blog post or a painting in a matter of seconds, eradicating the struggle of doing it ourselves.

This article, penned by Trent Durham Professor, Dr. Martina Orlandi, originally appeared in Durham Metroland.