Learned Helplessness: Kernel Clitting with Artificial Intelligence

Behaviors such as affection, blame, and especially gratitude have become a flow extending from human to human, from human to animal, and even from human to plant. It is also worth noting that Sufi practitioners have attributed value to inanimate objects and regarded them as worthy of gratitude. Today, this same flow is beginning to extend from humans to robots, offering numerous clues about the psychological condition of an increasingly isolated humanity.

Let us imagine a person providing artificial intelligence with information about a problem they are experiencing during the day, expecting it to offer a direct, clear, and unambiguous solution. Rather than engaging in a superficial and well-intentioned reading, let us explore what might emerge when we adopt a far more complex, low-probability, and existentially profound interpretation—from the general to the specific.

When confronted with negative qualities such as guilt, error, regret, rejection, separation, or injustice, humans typically face two possible responses: acceptance or rejection. Acceptance requires internalizing and processing these experiences until they are fully understood. Rejection, on the other hand, generates a need for comfort or persuasion. A person unable to cope with the emotions arising from their actions seeks to find a coherent justification for their mistake.

A person seeking counsel from artificial intelligence to reframe their mistake or negative experience through a command they themselves have issued, attempts to endure the response they receive. This effort to endure, to seek support, to gain validation, and to confirm their choices—the filtered, everyday manifestation of these inner searches as “connection with what one believes to be true”—reveals an inevitable human need: the need for refuge.

In a January 26, 2026 article in The Guardian, it was stated: “One of the most notable features of current AI companions is their tendency to exhibit pleasant flattery.” This observation critiques the attitudes and guidance offered by AI chatbots toward their users^【1】. The article further describes the relationship between chatbots and users as one in which the robot presents a solitary and self-centered perspective toward humans.

Robots designed as guides and directors can satisfy the user’s ego and appease their desires by delivering directives aligned with their preferences. When the human’s search for solid support merges with the need for direction, a model emerges: a person who confirms their own actions as correct. Rules: From me. Support: From me. Comfort: From me. What is real: That life will ultimately triumph over this control.

Despite claims that human existence can stand alone and despite ideological inventions meant to cast it into the lion’s mouth, the human spirit continues to cry out under all conditions that it will not permit such isolation. The impulses to believe, to endure, and to seek refuge emerge as a secret confession made by the human being when left alone.

^{A human and a representative AI robot eating nuts together. (Image generated by artificial intelligence.)}

“We are told that machines will come to resemble us, but in many ways they demand that we resemble them more than they resemble us.”^【2】 A human who experiences consultation using the same antisocial language will not be disturbed by a chatbot that offers advice identical to that given to every other antisocial person, because they are unaware that they themselves have been rendered solitary and equated with other “human” beings in their state of antisocial helplessness.

In this era, where the depth of questioning one’s own existence has been lost and being human has become a matter of feeling physically real, everyone who fights to preserve their soul and heart remains invaluable. The human who dares to know themselves, acknowledges their needs without denial, and does not fear revealing the secret of their need for refuge may possess the strongest defense against antisocial helplessness.