A Speculative Evaluation of Artificial Intelligence / Machine Psychology: Do Artificial Intelligences Dream of Electric Sheep?

Authors : Mevlüt Altıntop
Pages : 69-93
Doi:10.55044/meusbd.1829096
View : 80 | Download : 253
Publication Date : 2025-12-31
Article Type : Review Paper
Abstract :This study opens a theoretical and speculative inquiry into the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Beginning with Alan Turing’s 1950 question “Can machines think?”, the trajectory of research and development has shown, by the end of the first quarter of the twentieth-first century, that machines-i.e., AI systems—have achieved much beyond early expectations. Despite their limitations, contemporary AI technologies have reached levels at which they can surpass humans across perception, sensing, learning, reasoning, and many forms of production. In particular, in artistic production—where idea, aesthetics, and pleasure may depend on a certain depth of feeling—outputs are increasingly produced that cannot be reliably attributed to either humans or AI. What remains is the question of AI’s capacity to feel, which raises the query: can machines feel like humans? Put differently, beyond philosophical and artistic production, when machines become embedded in everyday life and interact with humans, does a psychological dimension of those machines emerge, and how should we assess their similarity to, and relation with, humans? Science-fiction author Philip K. Dick attempted to respond to this problem in his 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Following the trajectories of Turing and Dick and synthesizing their viewpoints, this study evaluates newsworthy media incidents in terms of AI’s potential to psychologically influence humans. The primary axis of analysis is the relation between feeling and psychology in AI. The study concludes that AI cannot feel as humans do, yet it can act in interactions as though it feels—simulating feeling in ways that may manipulate humans and cause material and immaterial harm. Such harms can be mitigated through well-designed AI literacy programs developed and implemented by stakeholders across politics, economics, technology, and education.
Keywords : Yapay Zekâ Psikolojisi, Makine Psikolojisi, Yapay Zekâ ve İletişim, Yapay Zekâ ve Medya, İletişim Psikolojisi

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