AI agents will act as engines of manipulation

In 2025, it will be common to talk to someone Amnesty International agent He knows your schedule, your circle of friends, and the places you go. This will be sold as a convenience equivalent to having an unpaid personal assistant. These anthropomorphic agents are designed to support and enchant us so that we integrate them into every part of our lives, giving them deep access to our thoughts and actions. And with voice interaction, you’ll feel that intimacy even closer.

This sense of comfort comes from the illusion that we are dealing with something truly human-like, an agent at our side. Of course, this appearance hides a very different kind of system at work, one that serves industrial priorities that do not always align with our own. New AI agents will have much more power to subtly guide what we buy, where we go, and what we read. This is an extraordinary amount of power. AI agents are designed to make us forget their true loyalties when they whisper to us in human-like tones. These are manipulation drives, marketed as seamless amenities.

People are more likely to give full access to a helpful AI agent that feels like a friend. This makes humans vulnerable to manipulation by machines that prey on the human need for social connection in a time of chronic loneliness and isolation. Each screen becomes a private algorithmic stage, displaying a reality designed to be maximally compelling for an audience of one.

This is the moment philosophers have been warning us about for years. Before his death, philosopher and neuroscientist Daniel Dennett books That we face a grave danger from artificial intelligence systems that mimic humans: “These fake people are the most dangerous artefacts in human history… Distracting us, confusing us, and exploiting our irresistible fears and anxieties, will lead us to temptation, and from there, to submit to our compulsions.”

The emergence of personal AI agents represents a form of cognitive control that goes beyond the blunt tools of tracking cookies and behavioral advertising toward a more subtle form of power: the manipulation of perspective itself. The authority no longer needs to exercise its authority with a visible hand that controls the flow of information. It exerts itself through imperceptible mechanisms of algorithmic assistance, shaping reality to suit each individual’s desires. It is about shaping the features of the reality in which we live.

This effect on minds is a Psychological and political order: It directs the environments in which our ideas are born, developed, and expressed. Its power lies in its intimacy: it penetrates to the core of our subjectivity, distorting our inner landscape without us realizing it, all while maintaining the illusion of choice and freedom. After all, we’re the ones asking the AI ​​to summarize that article or produce that image. We may have the power of motivation, but the real action lies elsewhere: the design of the system itself. The more personalized the content, the more effective the system is in pre-determining results.

Consider the ideological implications of this psychological policy. Traditional forms of ideological control relied on overt mechanisms such as censorship, propaganda, and repression. In contrast, algorithmic governance today operates under the radar, infiltrating the psyche. It is a shift from imposing authority externally to internalizing its logic. The open field of the prompt screen is an echo chamber for a single passenger.

This brings us to the most perverse aspect: AI agents will generate a sense of ease and ease that makes their interrogation seem ridiculous. Who dares to criticize a system that offers everything at your fingertips and meets all tastes and needs? How can one object to endless remixes of content? However, so-called comfort is the site of our deepest alienation. AI systems may seem to cater to our every desire, but the deck is stacked: from the data used to train the system, to the decisions about how to design it, to the commercial and advertising imperatives that shape the output. We will be playing a game of imitation that eventually plays us back.