Philosophy For Our Times The language of the unconsciouos: Pyschoanalysis and AI | Alenka Zupančič
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Oct 6, 2025 Alenka Zupančič, a Slovenian Lacanian philosopher and collaborator of Slavoj Žižek, dives into the intriguing interplay between AI and our unconscious psyche. She critiques ChatGPT as an embodiment of collective discourse that stifles individuality while also examining how it operates like a Lacanian 'big other.' Zupančič explores the implications of AI-generated irony, the dangers of a pervasive unsubjective AI, and how this reflects a societal shift, normalizing absurd political ideas through its mimicry—transforming how we perceive and engage with language.
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Patient Brought A ChatGPT Dream
- Alenka Zupančič recounts a psychoanalytic patient who brought a dream generated by ChatGPT for joint analysis.
- She then tested ChatGPT herself and received a Dream + instant Freudian-style interpretation from the model.
AI As A Talking 'Big Other'
- ChatGPT mimics the 'big other' by speaking like an oracle while drawing from a vast repository of signifiers.
- It produces structured associations that resemble free association but lack the analyst's required encounter with a singular real.
Subject Emerges From A Discursive Gap
- For Lacan the subject emerges from a gap or impossibility within discourse, not mere discursive effects.
- Zupančič argues AI lacks the activation of that gap, so it cannot generate genuine subjectivity.