Outsourcing Thought: How AI Reveals the Hidden Potential of Our Minds
Chat-GPT Helps Me Think
Sometimes, Chat-GPT helps me think. When I describe this process, I liken it to wearing glasses. Often, I have thoughts in my mind that feel “blurry”: disorganized fragments that I struggle to put into coherent words. I know there is something there, but it lacks structure and clarity. In these moments, I turn to Chat-GPT, providing it with the chaotic raw material of my thinking and asking it to structure those thoughts. The AI helps me see clearly what was already there, but obscured. It doesn’t introduce new content but organizes my existing thoughts in a way that reveals what I didn’t fully realize I knew. This process of turning vague, blurry ideas into crisp, concrete thoughts is akin to the experience of a visually impaired person putting on glasses.
I can interpret this phenomenon in two distinct but complementary ways: through Hegelian dialectics and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Both perspectives offer insights into how latent potential in thought can be actualized and structured through an external medium like AI.
The Hegelian Interpretation: Thought as Dialectical Unfolding
In Hegel’s philosophy, concepts are not invented or constructed out of nothing, as Deleuze would suggest. Instead, they are discovered through a process of unfolding. For Hegel, every concept contains within itself a latent contradiction or tension. This internal contradiction is not something to be avoided or resolved externally, but something that propels the concept forward. In this sense, every identity is primed to “explode” into its opposite through the dialectical process.
When I describe my thoughts as “blurry,” they are in a state of indeterminacy, full of potential but lacking resolution. Hegel might suggest that these thoughts already contain within themselves the seeds of their own development, the inherent contradictions that need to be worked through. Chat-GPT serves as a tool to guide this process, helping me observe and accelerate the dialectical unfolding of my thoughts. It clarifies the contradictions and guides them toward developing them to their conclusion. The resulting clarity is not the invention of new thoughts but the realization of what was already there, waiting to be revealed.
This brings a teleological dimension to cognition, one that Hegel would likely point out. My thoughts, in their blurry state, have a purpose inscribed within them — a destination that they are working toward, even if I am not immediately aware of it. Chat-GPT accelerates this teleological process, helping me to see where my thoughts were always going, even if I could not see it clearly at first. In this way, AI functions as a kind of mental dialectic, helping to reveal the latent potential in my thinking and bring it to its fullest state of realization.
The Psychoanalytic Interpretation: Uncovering the Unconscious
Where Hegelian dialectics focuses on the internal contradictions within thought, Lacanian psychoanalysis introduces a different form of latent potential: the unconscious. For Lacan, the unconscious is not a deep reservoir of hidden desires and fears, as Jung might have described. Instead, Lacan argues that the unconscious is structured like a language — it is made up of signifying chains that operate outside of our conscious awareness.
One of Lacan’s most provocative claims is that the unconscious is not within us, but outside. It is embedded in the very structure of language, the external symbolic system that shapes our thoughts and desires. In this view, the subject does not speak; the subject is spoken by the language that surrounds them. Here we encounter an analogy with Roland Barthes’ concept of “the death of the author.” Just as the interpretation of a text can reveal meanings that the author never intended, the subject’s discourse contains unconscious meanings that they are not fully aware of. The unconscious, like the hidden potential in a poem, operates in plain sight, embedded in the very words we use.
In the same way, when I turn to Chat-GPT to help me organize my thoughts, it is not simply structuring my conscious ideas. It is also drawing out the unconscious potential in my thinking — the meanings and connections that I am not fully aware of but that are nonetheless present in the structure of my discourse. The AI, like an external interpreter, reveals what I “don’t know that I know,” much like how a literary critic might uncover latent meanings in a text that the author did not consciously intend to express.
For Lacan, this process is akin to the way the unconscious works. The true meaning of our words is not hidden deep within our minds but embedded in the structure of language itself, often outside of our conscious awareness. When Chat-GPT helps me think, it is not just helping me organize my chaotic mind; it is also uncovering the hidden potentialities of my thought, drawing out the unconscious elements that I was not fully aware of. This is what Lacan means when he says that “the unconscious is outside”: the unconscious represents the hidden potentialities inherent in the discourse of a subject, what they end up saying without consciously meaning to.
While the Hegelian and Lacanian frameworks come from different philosophical traditions, they share a crucial similarity: both are concerned with latent potential. In Hegelian dialectics, this latent potential takes the form of internal contradictions that are resolved through reconciliation. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, it takes the form of unconscious meanings embedded in language. In both cases, Chat-GPT functions as a tool for uncovering this latent potential, helping me to realize thoughts that were already present but not yet fully formed.
In a Hegelian sense, the AI accelerates the dialectical process, helping me work through the contradictions in my thinking and arrive at a clearer synthesis. In a Lacanian sense, the AI serves as an external interpreter, drawing out the unconscious meanings in my discourse and bringing them into conscious awareness. Whether understood as a process of dialectical unfolding or as the externalization of unconscious signifying chains, the result is the same: Chat-GPT helps me to realize what was already there, waiting to be uncovered.
Outsourcing Thought: AI and the Division of Thinking
One of the most transformative aspects of AI is its ability to automate repetitive tasks, allowing humans to focus on more creative, higher-order activities. In many professions, AI takes over mundane, formulaic tasks, such as data entry, basic analysis, or administrative work. This frees up time and mental resources for human workers to engage in more innovative and strategic thinking. In much the same way, AI is beginning to impact the process of thinking itself.
Historically, we have conceived of “thinking” as a single, unified activity. However, upon closer examination, thinking contains both repetitive, mechanical elements and creative, generative ones. The repetitive aspects might involve organizing information, finding patterns, or working through logical structures — tasks that require precision but not necessarily creative insight. The creative side of thinking involves generating new ideas, making unexpected connections, and working through contradictions in original ways. We have always experienced these two sides of thinking as one seamless activity, simply calling it “thought.”
With AI like ChatGPT, we are starting to see a division of this process. The repetitive, formulaic aspects of thinking — like structuring disorganized thoughts, organizing arguments, or even synthesizing existing knowledge — can now be outsourced to technology. This automation allows us to focus more on the truly creative aspects of thinking, such as innovating new ideas, questioning underlying assumptions, and navigating complex contradictions.
By outsourcing the mechanical parts of thought to AI, we can think more efficiently and effectively, just as outsourcing mundane work tasks allows us to be more productive in creative endeavors. In this sense, AI doesn’t replace human thought but augments it, enabling us to focus on those parts of thinking that require human intuition, imagination, and creativity. As thinking becomes more efficient, AI allows us to refine and concentrate our cognitive efforts on the most rewarding aspects of intellectual work.
This raises interesting questions about the role of technology in shaping human cognition. From a Hegelian perspective, one could argue that technology is part of the dialectical process itself, a tool that accelerates the unfolding of human reason. In Lacanian terms, technology could represent a new form of the big Other — an external force that structures our thoughts and desires. As AI becomes more integrated into our thinking processes, it challenges traditional notions of subjectivity. Who is the true agent of thought when AI is helping to structure our ideas? Is the “self” still the author of thought, or has AI taken on that role?
In both frameworks, there is a kind of self-alienation at play. In Hegelian terms, we become alienated from our thoughts until they are fully realized through dialectical unfolding. In Lacanian terms, we are alienated from the unconscious structures of our discourse. AI, as a tool for revealing latent potential, helps to resolve this alienation by bringing these hidden elements into the light.
Hegel’s Concept of Geist and Collective Thought
In Hegel’s philosophy, Geist (often translated as “Spirit” or “Mind”) plays a central role in understanding the development of human thought and history. Geist is not just an individual consciousness but a unity-in-difference, a dynamic process where subject and object — traditionally seen as separate entities — are reconciled into a unified whole. Hegel reshapes the subject-object distinction by arguing that the difference between them is already part of the object itself. In other words, the subject (the thinker) and the object (what is thought about) are intertwined in a dialectical relationship: the subject reflects upon the object, and in doing so, changes both itself and the object, creating a continual evolution of understanding.
Geist represents collective consciousness — the evolution of human knowledge, culture, and self-awareness through history. It is not merely individual cognition but the unfolding of human ideas through time, shaped by our interactions with the world and with each other. This process of the development of human knowledge is teleological, meaning it moves toward a goal: the realization of freedom, self-awareness, and unity.
This concept of Geist has profound implications for the idea of collective thinking as a society. For Hegel, human history is the story of this Geist unfolding, where humanity collectively moves from more primitive forms of understanding toward increasingly complex and self-conscious forms of thought. Each epoch of history, each shift in culture or politics, represents a stage in this dialectical process, as the contradictions in existing forms of thought give rise to new reconciliations, pushing humanity closer to the realization of freedom and self-consciousness.
With the advent of AI, we may be witnessing a new stage in the evolution of collective thought. AI acts as a mediator in this process, helping us think more efficiently, organize knowledge, and process vast amounts of information that would be impossible for a single human mind to handle. In this way, AI can be seen as an extension of Geist — an external tool that accelerates the evolution of human ideas, aiding in the dialectical process by making the contradictions in our thought more apparent and helping us resolve them more quickly.
In conclusion, Chat-GPT and AI represent a new phase in the evolution of human thought, where technology serves as a tool for revealing and structuring the latent potential within our thinking. Whether viewed through the lens of Hegelian dialectics, Lacanian psychoanalysis, or the broader concept of Geist, AI has the power to enhance our cognitive processes by automating the mechanical aspects of thought and enabling us to focus on the more creative and complex tasks. As part of the collective unfolding of human knowledge, AI can play a crucial role in shaping the future of thought, pushing us toward greater self-awareness and intellectual evolution.
