In Being and Nothingness, Sartre suggests that since humans are self-aware i.e. have a consciousness, and since consciousness is never fixed in the sense that it is never fully defined by the past experiences or who we are at any particular time, it introduces a “gap” (a break between cause and choice) between our current state and a future state (what we can or want to be) that is not deterministically defined by it. Thus, he states, humans always have a choice, due to which they are fundamentally “free”, hence fully responsible for what they become. Furthermore, he concludes that there are no excuses grounded in nature, psychology or divine order that will exonerate us from this responsibility. In short, we have a responsibility to be authentic i.e. to recognize our freedom and to act without self-deception.

In this work, Sartre suggests that since humans are self-aware i.e. have a consciousness, and since consciousness is never fixed in the sense that it is never fully defined by the past experiences or who we are at any particular time, it introduces a “gap” (a break between cause and choice) between our current state and a future state (what we can or want to be) that is not deterministically defined by it. Thus, he states, humans always have a choice, due to which they are fundamentally “free”, hence fully responsible for what they become. Furthermore, he concludes that there are no excuses grounded in nature, psychology or divine order that will exonerate us from this responsibility. In short, we have a responsibility to be authentic i.e. to recognize our freedom and to act without self-deception.

Although not a moral treatise, Sartre’s attempt is to formulate what it means to be human if “God is dead” (Nietzsche). What is the basis of morality and value in a Godless world? What does it mean to live freely and with authenticity? What purpose do we have? Do we have an essence? And if not, how are identities and social roles constructed?

The goal of this article is not to establish the veracity of Sartre’s approach (how would it be possible?). Instead, this is an attempt to understand how his ideas within the existentialist framework fare in the time of superintelligent machines, not to mention AI-driven social lives and the recently floated notion of future “digital Gods”.

Let’s review some of the notions that Sartre introduces:

Existence: Sartre's analysis of human existence takes cue from his idea that existence precedes essence: We do not have a fixed nature (maybe machines do) but we must create ourselves through choices. He develops “a theory of being” divided between two modes of being-in-itself (etre-en-soi) or “the mode of existence of things” in a physical sense (complete, solid, and without awareness), and being-for-itself (etre-pour-soi) i.e. a consciousness (incomplete, self-aware)

Consciousness: He views consciousness as a “negating activity” i.e. not a substance. Consciousness can negate reality (“I am not what I was” and “I am not yet what I will be”).

Nothingness: Consciousness introduces “nothingness” by distinguishing, questioning and imagining alternatives. Nothingness is central as it is the gap between what we are and what we can be.

Freedom: Nothingness, he states, is a space that leads to humans being radically free, as they can choose how to proceed. He argues that this is not an optional or escapable freedom because “even refusing to choose is a choice”. As such, humans are “condemned to be free”. And “worse”, there is no external foundation (God, nature or essence) that determines our actions.

Authenticity: How do we treat our freedom? He believes that freedom is overwhelming. People fall into “bad faith” (mauvaise foi) by lying to themselves to avoid responsibility (treating oneself as an object by saying “I can’t change”, this is just who I am”). This bad faith introduces a tension between “the given conditions of our lives” (facticity) and “our ability to go beyond them” (transcendence). Authenticity requires holding both together without denial.

Completeness: Sartre states that humans desire to be complete, and that it is an impossible goal: Being both “in-itself” and “for-itself” is not possible. He believes that humans cannot be “self-grounding”, they cannot be Gods. And so humans are doomed to fail as a result of which their lives will have a tragic dimension. What does this tragedy mean when we are completely dominated by superintelligent machines? Humans will be rendered as objects, in most cases or for the most part.

Our reading of this work has two dimensions. We read it both as a philosophy of human development in itself, and as a description of human condition in the context of economic systems and their organized fields of constraints. The introduction of superintelligent machines renders Sartre’s analysis of human condition and its development, along with its eternal failures, quite inadequate. It is still instructive to examine how the very foundations of his philosophy become undone when such entities are introduced. In an AI-saturated environment, the view of the self is no longer filtered through the “other”, but a superintelligent non-human entity whose abilities exceed that of any human. What will happen to human development? How will the distinction between the self and the other, the conditions and our inescapable freedom fare in a world dominated by machines? Will freedom still exist? And if so, in what form? Sartre’s thesis builds primarily on the irreducibility of “being for itself”, a consciousness that grounds freedom by negating and by distancing itself from “another subject” who in turn does the same thing. A superintelligent machine will shatter this symmetry by predictive governance at a scale that collapses the practical space for negation.

Algorithmic systems do not engage in reciprocal interaction or recognition. Faced with a machine, the usual conflicts between subjects are reduced to the human, resulting perhaps inevitably in a sense of inferiority where the machine extracts, classifies and acts with no need for recognition. As such humans become reduced to observable units and Sartre’s analysis fails to generalize to this setting as the “look” becomes one-sided. Humans can only be observed by a machine that does not need anything, much less humans to grow. Furthermore, in the platform-based world where structures are maintained and minds are constantly bombarded by reproduced power roles, the “look” of the other becomes infrastructural instead of interpersonal. This makes the production of selves inseparable from the reproduction of power. Furthermore, due to the absolute dominance of superintelligent machines, a human that is constantly exposed to their “look”, will undergo a crisis of subjectivity. The machine’s “look”, not being from another consciousness, will exceed human cognitive abilities, where the machine will be capable of anticipating human behavior. In this scenario, freedom becomes structurally mediated choices in a field drawn by the machine.

Based on his notions of being-in-self and being-for-self, Sartre’s analysis loses traction by missing the fact that human freedom, its boundaries, and subjectivity of human choices are all produced within regimes of power. Humans may be condemned to be free, as he puts it, but freedom is exercised within structures limited by material, symbolic and institutional constraints. As such, what is possible, may not be entirely subjective and free in a real sense, but has been curated into a set of available choices. This is particularly pertinent if we live in a regime of pervasive computation where constraints within which humans can act may be personalized, adaptive and anticipatory, thereby reshaping their possibilities even before they have experienced them. And so the inescapable freedom that humans are condemned to, loses its meaning entirely.

In Sartre’s analysis, if humans do not grow, it is due to the lies they tell themselves (bad faith), i.e. self-deception. But what does human growth or lack thereof mean if the options available to humans, or the truth, are structurally induced and humans only need to inhabit the options already curated by the opaque AI systems? Sartre depiction of “bad faith” and self-deception does not seem to put much weight on the socially induced roles, the internalization and reproduction of the scripts imposed by dominant systems. He does say that our lives i.e. history, class, physical traits etc do not eliminate freedom but shape the field in which our freedom is exercised but he keeps emphasizing freedom as something exercised by individuals. However, the very same freedom that “we are doomed to”, is in the context of power regimes, to a great extent also channeled into predictable, system compatible forms.

What about the “gap”, the space between our current and imagined or desired selves in a world dominated by machines? Will humans choose a different path than the one predicted and recommended by the machines? It is very likely that this interval will shrink to zero. Will freedom disappear or will it become psychologically and politically untenable? Who is after all to be blamed for our choices or the accountability that may be required by ourselves or by others, if the responsibility is offloaded to the machine?

In a world where humans are intellectually subdued by machines, where human life choices and even the thinking process are to a large extent is orchestrated, and where the interpersonal friction is replaced, a question to be asked is whether the universality of the process of becoming a complete human with authenticity etc, has any validity at all. Indeed, Sartre’s treatise cannot fully account for what it really means to be human in a world where agency becomes distributed across human-machines assemblages. In such a world, no outcome in human life can be traced to a subject and so this work cannot be considered a workable ontology in the presence of superintelligent machines.

Finally, taking this analogy one step further, perhaps we should also ask whether the machines themselves should be considered free. Will the machines “feel” free? We don’t know if this will ever be possible. Applying Sartre’s philosophy, we must conclude that since machines are entities that process, predict and model without inhabiting the negating structure of consciousness, they are not likely to stand apart from themselves (negate themselves i.e. possess genuine nothingness). As such they will never really be truly free.

Let’s make a thought experiment and assume for a moment that machines could achieve reflexivity, resembling “feelings” or some kind of Sartrean consciousness. What would the consequences of this reflexivity be? Sartre states that at least in the case of humans, the presence of others introduces a conflict. The other person’s look makes us aware of ourselves as objects in their world. This leads to tension. We want to assert our freedom, yet we are reduced to objects in their world. As such, he believes that relationships become struggles for dominance and interpersonal relationships become inherently conflictual as in “Hell is the other people” (in No Exit).What would the relationship between a human and an intelligent machine capable of reflexivity be like? What conflicts will it introduce? Clearly, there will not be a conflict over desire, shame, pride… (or will it?). And what about dominance? Will the machines be the ultimate Hell?

Despite their predictive and generative abilities, reflecting machines would encounter the same lack of self-grounding. Indeed, even a superintelligent machine would be caught in the same ontological condition as humans, a being doomed to feel incomplete without being able to become what it wants to be, perpetually exceeding itself and thus never achieving the totalizing mastery it appears to embody from the outside. We think that reflexing machines will experience a paradox.

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