AI & Psychedelics: The Silent Revolution Reshaping Our Relationship with Work
The Unsettling Accuracy of Kurzweil’s Predictions
In 1990, when the Internet was merely a confidential network used by a handful of academics, one man was already predicting its future omnipresence in our lives. In 1999, this same man announced that by the early 2020s, artificial intelligences would be capable of carrying out natural conversations and creating coherent texts. That man is Ray Kurzweil, and the emergence of ChatGPT has once again proven him right.
Kurzweil is not just another futurist. As the inventor of the first flatbed scanner and the first reading machine for the blind, honored with America’s highest technological distinction, he has built his reputation on predictions of unsettling accuracy. In 1990, he predicted that a computer would defeat the world chess champion before 1998 — Deep Blue defeated Kasparov in 1997. An analysis of his predictions conducted in 2010 reveals a success rate of 86% across his 147 predictions for 2009–2010. His understanding of technological trajectories is so well-respected that Google appointed him as Director of Engineering in 2012, specifically to develop natural language processing — the very technology at the heart of ChatGPT.
The Exponential Acceleration of Progress
Today, Kurzweil warns us about an unprecedented acceleration. According to him, the progress achieved throughout the entire 20th century would now take place in just 20 years. By 2030, this same level of progress could occur in a single year, then in a month a few years later. This exponential acceleration of technologies is not a fanciful projection — it’s the logical continuation of a historical trend he calls “the law of accelerating returns.”
To better grasp this acceleration, Tim Urban, founder of Wait But Why and one of today’s most influential technology analysts, proposes a striking thought experiment. Imagine transporting someone from 1750 to our time. The shock would be so violent they could die from it: cars, planes, smartphones, Internet — their brain couldn’t process this reality. Now, if that same person from 1750 were to transport someone from 1500, the shock would be much less severe. The difference between 1500 and 1750 is infinitely smaller than that between 1750 and 2024. This is the concrete manifestation of exponential acceleration.
Urban calls this a “DPU” (Die Progress Unit) — the unit of progress sufficient to cause fatal shock. If a DPU required 100,000 years in hunter-gatherer times, then 12,000 years after the agricultural revolution, today it takes only a few decades. And this compression continues to accelerate.
Generative artificial intelligence is the most striking illustration of this. Language models write novels, vision systems analyze medical x-rays, algorithms predict protein structures. This progression doesn’t follow a straight line — it follows an exponential curve that’s accelerating. And as Urban reminds us, the peculiarity of exponential curves is that even when they seem to progress slowly, they can suddenly explode upward in a dizzying manner.
Societal Implications
This technological acceleration is not only transforming our tools — it challenges the very place of humans in the production chain. Most of the jobs we know, those linked to capital production, will be progressively automated. This is not a distant hypothesis, but a reality unfolding before our eyes.
This massive automation raises a question deeper than technological unemployment: what becomes of a society when work, as we know it, is no longer its backbone? Work, in our modern societies, extends far beyond its economic function. It structures our identities, occupies our thoughts, and above all — it prevents us from asking fundamental questions about the meaning of our existence. Post-retirement depressions are a symptom of this: deprived of their professional role, many find themselves facing the existential void they’ve avoided their entire lives.
Jung’s Insight into Our Era
Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), one of the most influential psychiatrists of the 20th century, offers a particularly relevant framework for understanding this historical moment. For Jung, periods of profound destabilization are not accidents to be avoided, but necessary passages toward higher consciousness. When our usual structures collapse, we are forced to dive into the depths of our psyche to find a more authentic meaning to our existence.
Tools for Transformation
This impending collective transformation requires tools. Psychedelics, long relegated to the margins of society, are emerging today as potential catalysts for this necessary introspection. In parallel, a new sector of activity is taking shape, no longer centered on capital production, but on creating societal value — support, art, ecology, social bonds.
This dizzying acceleration of progress, documented by Kurzweil and illustrated by Urban, is not just a technological evolution. It marks a tipping point in human history, comparable to the industrial revolution in its scope, but infinitely faster in its deployment. As Urban points out, we are probably the last generation that will consider artificial intelligence as a technology rather than as a force that fundamentally redefines what it means to be human.
AI, by freeing us from traditional work, collectively pushes us toward existential questioning that we have postponed for too long. This transformation, as destabilizing as it may be, carries within it the seeds of a society more conscious of its choices and their impact.
The End of the Traditional Work Paradigm
The upheaval caused by artificial intelligence goes beyond mere technological evolution. We are witnessing a fundamental redefinition of the very concept of work, comparable to the industrial revolution in its scope, but infinitely faster in its deployment.
Massive Automation
The signs of this transformation are already visible. Language models write code, produce legal analyses, generate marketing content. Artificial vision systems detect cancers with greater accuracy than radiologists. Trading algorithms dominate financial markets. This first wave of automation even affects intellectual professions, long considered immune to robotization.
Unlike previous revolutions, which shifted the workforce toward new sectors, AI doesn’t create an obvious fallback sector. It progressively absorbs all tasks related to capital production. The new jobs it generates — developers, data scientists, prompt engineers — are temporary by nature. They serve to develop systems that will eventually be able to improve autonomously.
The Collective Existential Crisis
This automation phenomenon reveals a deep flaw in our social organization. Take retirement as a parallel: many retirees, freed from professional constraints, fall into depression. Not from lack of activity, but from loss of meaning. Their identity, built around their professional role, collapses.
Work in our society fulfills a function that far exceeds the economic framework. It has become a mechanism of mass avoidance. The daily grind: this routine, as criticized as it may be, protects us. It prevents us from confronting fundamental questions about our existence. What are we really doing on this planet? What is the meaning of our actions? What legacy do we wish to leave?
Money and professional prestige serve as substitutes for meaning. They provide clear metrics, tangible objectives, immediate rewards. This reassuring materiality prevents us from diving into the uncertainty of existential questioning. But massive automation risks depriving us of this comfortable avoidance.
The gradual disappearance of traditional jobs therefore represents more than just an economic challenge. It collectively places us face to face with an existential void that we have spent generations avoiding. How do we occupy this freed time? How do we build identity outside the professional framework? How do we find meaning in existence when economic value production is no longer imperative?
These questions, traditionally reserved for philosophers or people in existential crisis, will become major societal issues. Society as a whole will have to relearn how to define its value outside the paradigm of economic productivity.
The transformation ahead is therefore not simply technological or economic. It touches the very foundations of our social organization and our relationship with existence. It’s precisely here that Jung’s thinking and the potential of psychedelics become particularly relevant.
Jung’s Shadow Concept Applied to Our Society
Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) is one of the most influential psychiatrists and psychoanalysts of the 20th century. Initially a disciple of Freud, he later departed to develop his own approach, analytical psychology. Jung revolutionized our understanding of the human psyche by introducing fundamental concepts such as the collective unconscious, archetypes, synchronicity, and the shadow. His vision extends beyond the purely clinical framework to encompass anthropology, mythology, religion, and alchemy, proposing a holistic approach to psychological development that he calls the “individuation process”. Unlike Freud’s more pathological approach, Jung sees psychological crises as opportunities for transformation and personal growth. This optimistic vision of human potential makes his thinking a particularly relevant framework for understanding current societal transformations.
Jungian theory offers a particularly relevant analytical framework for understanding the societal transformation ahead. Jung developed the concept of shadow to describe aspects of our personality that we refuse to see, that we repress into the unconscious. At a collective level, our relationship with work and productivity shows striking similarities to this psychological mechanism.
The Collective Shadow of Our Society
Our economic system has created what Jung would call a collective “persona” — a social mask. This persona manifests in our obsession with growth, productivity, and material success. We have collectively adopted the belief that an individual’s value is measured by their capacity to produce capital.
Behind this mask lies our societal shadow. It contains everything we have sacrificed on the altar of productivity: our need for authentic connection, our spontaneous creativity, our relationship with non-productive time. Generalized anxiety, depression, and burnout are manifestations of this shadow trying to make itself heard.
Work, as we have structured it, acts as a collective defense mechanism. It maintains us in the illusion that we know what we’re doing, that our lives have a clear and defined meaning. But this structure, like any defense mechanism, comes with an enormous psychological cost. It cuts us off from entire aspects of our humanity.
The Necessity of Confronting Our Shadow
Jung insisted on a fundamental point: the shadow doesn’t disappear when ignored. On the contrary, it gains power and eventually manifests in destructive ways. At a societal level, we already see the signs: ecological crises, rising extremism, loneliness epidemic, widespread loss of meaning.
AI automation forces us into a confrontation that we would probably have continued to avoid without it. It pushes us into what Jung called the individuation process — the path toward a more complete integration of our psyche.
This collective individuation process involves recognizing and integrating what our society has long rejected into the shadow:
- The value of non-productivity
- The importance of authentic social bonds
- The need for connection with nature
- The necessity of introspection and existential questioning
- The spiritual dimension of existence
This integration doesn’t mean completely abandoning productivity or efficiency. Jung didn’t advocate rejecting the persona, but rather its conscious use, as a tool rather than an identity prison. Similarly, a society that has integrated its shadow wouldn’t reject technology or efficiency, but would put them in service of a more complete vision of human flourishing.
The Transformation of Values
This confrontation with our collective shadow necessarily brings about a profound transformation of our values. Activities currently considered “unproductive” — art, contemplation, caring for others, environmental preservation — emerge as essential to our collective balance.
It’s in this context that the emergence of a quaternary sector takes on its full meaning. This new sector would not be a simple extension of our current system, but rather the expression of a society that has begun to integrate its shadow, recognizing the value of what it has long rejected.
This transformation will not be easy. Jung emphasized that confronting the shadow is always destabilizing, sometimes terrifying. But it’s precisely in this confrontation that lies the potential for renewal, growth, and evolution toward a higher consciousness.
The question is no longer whether this transformation will take place, but how to accompany it. This is where psychedelics, as tools for exploring the psyche, can play a decisive role.
The Emergence of the Quaternary Sector
Economic history can be read as a progression: from the primary sector (natural resource extraction) to the secondary (industrial transformation), then to the tertiary (services). The emergence of a quaternary sector marks a new stage in this evolution, responding to needs deeper than mere economic value production.
I invite you to read Jérémy Lamri’s excellent prospective article on the subject.
Beyond Capital Production
The quaternary sector is defined by its purpose: the production of societal value. It encompasses activities that directly contribute to collective well-being, human flourishing, and environmental preservation. These activities, while existing, are often marginalized because they are not profitable in the current paradigm.
The quaternary sector notably includes human accompaniment, artistic and cultural creation, environmental regeneration, and the strengthening of social bonds. Transformative education and social innovation are also essential components. The particularity of these activities is that they cannot be fully automated, requiring deeply human qualities such as empathy, creativity, and emotional intelligence. AI can support them, but not replace them.
The Transformation of Businesses
This evolution also transforms existing businesses. In a world where material production is largely automated, differentiation happens differently. Consumers, freed from immediate survival concerns, become more demanding about the social and environmental impact of their purchases. Businesses must expand their mission beyond profit, no longer through simple greenwashing, but through a fundamental transformation of their purpose.
This evolution is already manifesting through the development of dedicated social impact branches in traditional companies, the generalization of mission-driven business models, and the growing importance of ESG criteria in investment decisions.
The Redefinition of Value
The quaternary sector requires a profound redefinition of what we consider as “value”. Traditional metrics become inadequate for measuring the real contribution of these activities. New indicators are emerging, centered on social impact, collective well-being, and ecosystem regeneration. This transformation also affects our relationship with time, valuing the slowness necessary for certain processes such as human accompaniment or artistic creation.
The Challenges of Transition
The transition to this new model raises fundamental questions about financing, training, and value measurement. The answer requires reinventing our economic and social systems, exploring paths such as universal contributive income or complementary currencies.
Beyond practical aspects, the greatest challenge remains the transformation of mindsets. The challenge is to accompany individuals in this paradigm shift and help them find their place in this new world.
Psychedelics as Transformation Accelerators
The emergence of the quaternary sector outlines the practical contours of a new social organization. But such a transformation cannot be limited to economic reorganization — it requires a profound evolution of collective consciousness.
The West has so far experienced two major revolutions in its understanding of human beings. The medical revolution first transformed our relationship with the body. Where our great-grandparents often refused to consult a doctor out of mistrust or tradition, modern medicine has become an indisputable pillar of our society. This first revolution significantly increased our life expectancy and understanding of the human body.
The psychological revolution followed, transforming our relationship with the mind. While our grandparents’ generation might still have frowned upon consulting a psychologist, mental health is now recognized as an essential dimension of well-being. The work of Freud, Jung, and their successors legitimized the exploration of our inner world.
However, a third component is missing from this evolution: the spiritual revolution. The West, in its race toward rationality and material progress, has largely neglected this dimension of human existence. Unlike traditional societies that naturally integrated spirituality into their understanding of the world, our modernity has often relegated it to the margins of society.
This third revolution is becoming crucial today. Faced with the upheavals caused by AI and the emergence of the quaternary sector, we need tools to explore and integrate the transcendent dimensions of human experience. It’s in this context that psychedelics emerge as potential catalysts for this necessary transformation.
The societal transformation we are going through requires powerful tools for introspection. Psychedelics, long marginalized by cultural prejudices, are emerging today as potential catalysts for this collective evolution.
Deconstructing Myths
The Global Commission on Drug Policy published a revealing study in 2019 on the relative harmfulness of different psychoactive substances. The results challenge preconceptions: alcohol, a legal and socially accepted substance, tops the list with a score of 72/100, followed by heroin (55) and crack (54). In contrast, classic psychedelics show remarkably low scores: LSD (7) and psilocybin (6).
This paradox illustrates a fracture in our societal approach to psychoactive substances. We have normalized alcohol, a powerful avoidance tool that structures our “work-drink-sleep” routine, while demonizing substances that, when used in an appropriate setting, can facilitate deep introspection.
A Unique Mechanism of Action
Unlike alcohol, which acts as a consciousness suppressor, allowing people to “drown their problems,” psychedelics operate according to an opposite logic. Not only do they not create physiological dependence, but epidemiological studies show they tend to reduce addictive behaviors by allowing understanding of their psychological roots.
In an appropriate setting, they facilitate:
- Temporary dissolution of psychological defense mechanisms
- Reconnection with repressed emotions and memories
- Increased awareness of our behavioral patterns
- Opening to new perspectives on oneself and the world
- Increased sense of connection with others and nature
Catalysts for Societal Transition
Faced with the upheavals caused by artificial intelligence in our relationship with work, psychedelics contribute to social transformation. Their action manifests at several levels.
Accelerators of Awareness: By allowing us to see beyond our social conditioning, they lead us to question the patterns that structure our worldview. This new lucidity opens perspectives on what gives meaning to our lives.
Engines of Personal Transformation: By helping us confront our fears, they transform our way of thinking and strengthen our ability to navigate change. This individual evolution subsequently influences our relationship with others and the world.
Facilitators of Connection: Psychedelics develop our empathy, create a sense of interconnection, and lead us to rethink our place in the Earth’s ecosystem. This relational dimension becomes central in a world that demands collaboration and mutual attention.
Tools for Collective Healing: By allowing us to address our individual and collective traumas, they pave the way for reconciliation — with ourselves, with others, with our environment. This collective healing enables imagining and building new social models.
A Synergy with Societal Transformation
The questioning of our relationship with work and meaning, accelerated by artificial intelligence, finds in psychedelics tools for exploration and transformation. Unlike substances that anesthetize consciousness, psychedelics allow us to face the emerging existential questions of this social transformation.
This approach echoes Jung’s thinking on the importance of confronting our shadow rather than fleeing it. Used responsibly, psychedelics accelerate this process of collective individuation that our society is going through.
Risks and Prevention: A Responsible Approach
An Evolving Legal Framework
The progressive legalization of psychedelics marks a historic turning point. Oregon and Colorado in the United States, Canada, and Australia have led the way by authorizing therapeutic use of psilocybin, while several South American countries regulate traditional ayahuasca use. These examples demonstrate that intelligent regulation is possible, preserving both public safety and controlled access to these substances.
Abuse Risks and Professional Training
The growing enthusiasm for these substances unfortunately comes with potential misuse. Cases of abuse by fake “shamans” or ill-intentioned therapists have been documented, particularly in ayahuasca tourism. These situations highlight the importance of rigorous healthcare professional training and strict ethical and safety protocols. Several universities are already developing specialized programs, an essential step to ensure safe and ethical practices.
The Importance of Set and Setting
Research has clearly demonstrated that the context of psychedelic experience is crucial. The “set” encompasses the person’s psychological state and intentions, while the “setting” concerns the physical and human environment. A secure framework, qualified guidance, and adequate preparation are essential to minimize risks and optimize potential benefits.
Contraindications and At-Risk Populations
Despite their excellent physiological safety profile, psychedelics have important contraindications, particularly for people with psychotic or bipolar disorders, or family history of psychosis. For these populations, decompensation risks require careful evaluation before any intervention.
Towards a Culture of Responsibility
The healthy integration of psychedelics into our society requires developing a true culture of responsibility. This involves public education campaigns, risk reduction protocols, and ongoing research into best practices. Prevention must become an absolute priority, with the development of quality standards and implementation of effective monitoring systems.
Only by adopting this responsible approach, combining intelligent regulation, professional training, and active prevention, can we maximize the potential benefits of psychedelics while minimizing associated risks. This major societal transformation requires prudence, rigor, and collective commitment to create a safe and beneficial framework for all.
Towards a New Society
The convergence of upheavals we are experiencing — AI automation, the emergence of the quaternary sector, the rediscovery of psychedelics — is not a coincidence. These phenomena mark different facets of a profound societal transformation.
Redefining Success
Massive AI automation represents more than just economic disruption. It acts as a revealer, highlighting the limits of our current definition of success. Performance, social status, material accumulation — these traditional metrics lose their relevance in a world where capital production is no longer the main challenge.
A new paradigm of success emerges, based not on material accumulation but on our ability to create connections, generate positive environmental impact, and contribute to collective well-being. This evolution reflects a profound change in our understanding of what gives value to life.
The Transformation of Values
This redefinition of success comes with a metamorphosis of our fundamental values. Qualities long considered secondary take center stage. Empathy, creativity, capacity for introspection become essential in a world where productive efficiency is no longer the priority.
This paradigm shift doesn’t mean completely abandoning traditional values, but integrating them into a more holistic vision of human development. It’s an expansion of our conception of success, not a rejection of technical progress.
The Challenges of Transition
This transformation raises considerable challenges. On a systemic level, we must deeply rethink our economic structures, educational institutions, and legal frameworks. The challenge isn’t simply technical, but fundamentally human.
The psychological dimension of this transition is equally crucial. Grieving old reference points, the emergence of new identities, integrating our collective shadow — these processes require careful accompaniment. Social cohesion itself is at stake as we collectively navigate these unknown waters.
A Historic Opportunity
Despite these challenges, we face an unprecedented opportunity in human history. The convergence between repetitive work automation, consciousness exploration tools, and our deep understanding of transformation processes creates conditions for a major evolution of collective consciousness.
This isn’t about a utopia where all problems would be solved, but about a society more conscious of its complexity and contradictions. A society capable of embracing uncertainty while maintaining its humanity.
Conscious Integration
AI frees us from traditional work. Psychedelics offer us tools for exploring consciousness. Jung’s thinking provides us with a framework to understand and integrate this transformation. The quaternary sector opens concrete paths to reinvent our social contribution.
This integration requires humility in face of change’s complexity, courage to confront our shadows, patience to let new models emerge. We’re not facing the “end of work,” but its profound transformation. Work becomes not an economic necessity, but an expression of our humanity. No longer an escape from existence, but a celebration of its richness and complexity.
The psychedelic renaissance is underway!
Sources
Note sur les sources : Une grande partie du contenu de cet article s’appuie sur la formation “Psychedelics and the Mind” de l’Université de Berkeley (BerkeleyX BCSP101x) ainsi que sur mon expérience personnelle de 10 années avec les psychédéliques classiques. Ces connaissances de terrain sont complétées par des sources académiques rigoureuses :
Much of the content of this article draws from the “Psychedelics and the Mind” course from the University of Berkeley (BerkeleyX BCSP101x) as well as my personal 10-year experience with classic psychedelics. This field knowledge is complemented by rigorous academic sources:
Huxley, A. (1954). The Doors of Perception. London: Chatto & Windus.
Websites to learn more about psychedelics:
Beckley Foundation: Consciousness, Brain, and Drug Policy Research
California Institute of Integral Studies, Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research (CIIS/CPTR)
Chacruna: Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines
Council on Spiritual Practices (CSP)
Erowid: Documenting the Complex Relationship Between Humans & Psychoactives
KRIYA: Ketamine Research Institute
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP)
[Article written on Sept 30th, 2024, by Gaspard Tertrais with the support of Claude 3.5 Sonnet for approximately 30%. Main image created with DALL.E-3, 2024].
