Narrative identity in agentic AI: alignment, alienation, and the self
Name of applicant
Jens Christian Bjerring
Title
Professor
Institution
Aarhus University
Amount
DKK 11,853,193
Year
2025
Type of grant
Semper Ardens: Accomplish
What?
We explore how emerging agentic AI systems, which can autonomously act on our behalf, form representations of who we are. Do their representations match the life stories we tell about ourselves, or do they feel foreign and disconnected? The project investigates how such alignment or alienation shapes people’s trust in AI, their sense of autonomy, and the responsible future of AI–human relations.
Why?
AI is rapidly moving into roles where it autonomously acts on our behalf, shaping key decisions in health, work, and everyday life. If these systems distort our life stories, we can expect people to experience alienation, loss of trust, and weakened autonomy. Addressing this is crucial for creating responsible AI that supports, rather than undermines, core human values and self-understanding.
How?
We combine psychology, philosophy, and design to explore how AI shapes people’s life stories. Through interviews, experiments, and conceptual analysis we study when AI representations feel aligned with or alienated from human self-understanding. We examine how this impacts trust and autonomy and begin translating the results into design guidance for the next generation of responsible AI systems.