My interest in the presented topic is twofold—on one hand, it emerges in the context of increasing dynamics of populist movements in politics, and on the other, it relates to the widespread use of linguistic AI models, which seem not without significance for political identities of their users.

Currently, the factors influencing the rise of populists are primarily identified in terms of cognitive forces operating through the media—attention is drawn to phenomena such as echo chambers and epistemic bubbles (Nguyen 2020); post-truth (Giroux 2020; Kalpokas 2019), and cognitive warfare (Lucas 2017, Miller 2023). Today, this list can be expanded to include the widespread adoption of the huge variety of AI chatbots, including ChatGPT within (not only) younger generation.

My intention is to reduce the apparent distance between the two indicated issues—i.e., the use of ChatGPT and the shaping of a populist mind (Kinnvall, Svensson 2022)—by referring to theoretical perspectives developed by such thinkers as Foucault, Agamben, and Latour. I am following Agamben (2006), who analyzes how technologies, functioning as apparatuses/dispositifs, shape subjects, and social relations, reinforcing mechanisms of control, subordinating individuals to power, and ultimately redefining the essence of humanity (c.f. Heidegger 1998). In Latour's perspective (1990, 1991, 2005), information technologies are socially constructed actors that influence subjects to act in a specific way. These and other perspectives guide my reflection on the widespread use of AI technologies by young people in relation to the cognitive and ethical aspects of shaping the mass individual, contributing to the erosion of civil society and its replacement with a Baudrillardian-conceived—ominous and silent—mass.

The argumentation in this final issue will be structured around the views expressed by thinkers such as Baudrillard, Arendt, Ortega y Gasset, and Oakeshott, concerning the characteristics attributed to the phenomena of mass and massification. For Baudrillard, the concept of mass lacks a core and sharp boundaries, which corresponds to its essence expressed in absence and aporia (Baudrillard 1983). Following Arendt (1973), it can be applied to human collectives that have been stripped of social bonds, whereas Ortega y Gasset formulates the thesis about the lack of intellectual and moral ties between mass individuals. Individuals united mass movements come together through affect, which is strengthened in situations of political mobilization. They are capable of creating totalitarian movements, characterized by Arendt (1973) as mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals. Similarly, Oakeshott (1975) and Ortega y Gasset (1961), emphasize moral and intellectual deficiencies  of individuals associated with mass society.

1. Experiencing the world through ChatGPT excludes the influence of education as a public domain, that is, a domain of meeting and exchange. I refer here to Arendt's theses (1958), which highlight the importance of operating in the public sphere, both in terms of the rules that connect people and those that separate them. Drawing on Arendt, the use of ChatGPT does not allow the subject to develop the politically constitutive ability to speak, judge, and act, which, instead of constructing meanings through mutual interaction and cooperation, relies on formulating prompts and collecting information. 2. There is a decline in the critical function of learning how to learn, manifested in perceiving the world as a "given reality." This is related to the fact that ChatGPT creates an epistemologically hostile environment as seductively clear belief systems (Nguyen 2023). 3. There is a deterioration of cognitive abilities and epistemological risk. The negative consequences of overreliance on AI are so far being identified by researchers and referred to issues of cognitive decline, including critical thinking, creativity, and analytical thinking (Ahmad et al. 2023, Araujo et al. 2020, Derga et al. 2024). However, I also recognize the issue of the development among (ChatGPT users) of reductionist naive theories of knowledge and naive theories of mind, which reduce the concept of the mind to a "container for information." These observations relate to the notion of epistemological risk, which I develop as an extension of the concept of 'epistemic risk,' where the latter is usually understood as the possibility of being mistaken, misinformed, or disinformed. 4. AI accelerates complex processes of exclusion, pushing certain individuals and social groups outside the realm of what is considered political. Thus, it exposes them to unrestricted, naked violence (Agamben) and leads to an unequal distribution of opportunities for development and the use of human cognitive capabilities (Nguyen 2023, 6). Herein, we deal with the effect of epistemic injustice.

Bacon’s promise of 'knowledge as power', in the context of unreflective AI usage, is being constantly and gradually transformed into 'the knowledge' of the powerless.

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