2025/12/03 by Lucy Osler, Osler, Lucy
Computer Science · Psychology · Social Sciences · #AI in Service Interactions #Computers and Society (cs.CY) #Ethics and Social Impacts of AI #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Mental Health via Writing
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.03682
openalex publication_date 2025/12/03 · openalex created_date 2025/12/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This chapter examines how algorithms and artificial intelligence are transforming our practices of self-knowledge, self-understanding, and self-narration. Drawing on frameworks from distributed cognition, I analyse three key domains where AI shapes how and what we come to know about ourselves: self-tracking applications, technologically-distributed autobiographical memories, and narrative co-construction with Large Language Models (LLMs). While self-tracking devices promise enhanced self-knowledge through quantified data, they also impose particular frameworks that can crowd out other forms of self-understanding and promote self-optimization. Digital technologies increasingly serve as repositories for our autobiographical memories and self-narratives, offering benefits such as detailed record-keeping and scaffolding during difficult periods, but also creating vulnerabilities to algorithmic manipulation. Finally, conversational AI introduces new possibilities for interactive narrative construction that mimics interpersonal dialogue. While LLMs can provide valuable support for self-exploration, they also present risks of narrative deference and the construction of self-narratives that are detached from reality.