Humans, Culture, and the Age of AI: Why Cultural Psychology Needs a Rethink
A new paper by IOE’s Pavel Sorokin revisits one of the most ambitious ideas in modern psychology: the attempt—championed by Estonian psychologist Aaro Toomela—to rebuild cultural psychology as a unified science of the human mind and its environment. In Cultural Psychology for a Technologically Transformed Society: A Neo-Structuration Perspective, Sorokin argues that this project arrives at exactly the right moment. Our world is no longer shaped only by institutions, traditions, and language—but increasingly by digital systems and artificial intelligence that produce culture alongside humans. In this rapidly shifting landscape, understanding how the human psyche interacts with culture is no longer just an academic question. It may be essential for navigating the future.
A quiet crisis has been brewing in the social sciences. Despite decades of research, thousands of journals, and massive academic investment, many scholars feel that disciplines like psychology and sociology are struggling to produce genuinely transformative insights. In fact, some critics argue that psychology still lacks a coherent methodological foundation.
Against this backdrop, Estonian psychologist Aaro Toomela issued a call for radical renewal. His proposal: rebuild cultural psychology from the ground up using a structural-systemic approach inspired by the great thinkers of the twentieth century—Lev Vygotsky, Alexander Luria, and Pyotr Anokhin. Their work treated the human mind not as an isolated brain process but as something fundamentally shaped through interaction with culture, language, and social systems.
Sorokin’s new paper enters the debate from a different disciplinary angle—sociology—and argues that Toomela’s project is not just promising, but urgently needed. However, it must be updated to reflect a dramatically different world from the one Vygotsky or Luria knew. The early twentieth century was dominated by stable institutions—nation-states, factories, political parties, and rigid educational systems. Cultural knowledge flowed downward through clear hierarchies.
The transformation and even survival of institutions increasingly depends on human agency rather than rigid social structures.
Today, those structures are loosening. Instead of stability, we live amid rapid technological disruption, global crises, and volatile institutions. Under these conditions, Sorokin suggests, the real engine of social change is increasingly human agency—the capacity of individuals to create, transform, and reshape the world around them.
This shift forms the heart of Sorokin’s theoretical framework: neo-structuration theory. While earlier sociological models emphasized how structures shape human behavior, neo-structuration argues that in the twenty-first century the relationship is reversing. Institutions—from corporations to educational systems—are becoming more dependent on the creative actions of individuals to survive and adapt.
Consider the modern digital economy. Entrepreneurs can launch companies, influence culture, or build global communities from a laptop. Social media influencers reshape cultural production. Remote work and gig platforms redefine employment. These developments suggest a world where individuals increasingly create new structures rather than simply reproduce old ones.
Yet perhaps the most dramatic transformation comes from a new actor in the cultural arena: artificial intelligence. AI systems now summarize information, generate text, create art, and interact conversationally with millions of people. In effect, they have become participants in culture itself.
Search engines synthesize knowledge. Chatbots answer questions and generate essays. Recommendation algorithms shape what news people read, what products they buy, and even whom they connect with online. Increasingly, the cultural environment surrounding individuals is partly designed by machines—systems whose internal logic humans may not fully understand.
Human agency is no longer a statistical outlier in social change—it is becoming a systemic force.
This has profound implications for cultural psychology. Classic theories assumed that culture was transmitted primarily through language and social institutions, such as schools or families. But in today’s digital world, cultural content often emerges from algorithmic systems and AI-generated material, spreading at unprecedented speed.
In response, Sorokin proposes updating the very definition of culture. Instead of seeing culture simply as a symbolic system shared among humans, he defines it as a “socio-technical environment dynamically mediated by human- and AI-generated linguistic signs.”
In other words, culture is no longer purely human. It is a hybrid ecosystem—part social, part technological—where algorithms and humans constantly interact.
But the paper goes further. It also challenges how psychologists understand the human psyche. Traditional theories, influenced by biology, often portray the mind as a system designed mainly to anticipate and avoid harmful environmental changes. Sorokin argues this perspective is too narrow for understanding modern human behavior.
Think of entrepreneurs launching risky startups, activists reshaping political systems, or volunteers building new communities. These actions are not merely defensive responses to threats. They represent something deeper: the drive to create new possibilities and transform reality.
Artificial intelligence is becoming a creator and disseminator of cultural content.
Accordingly, Sorokin suggests redefining the psyche as a system capable not only of adapting to its environment but also actively reshaping it—for example by creating new institutions, social practices, or communities.
Such transformation is becoming easier thanks to digital tools. A single person with a computer can launch a platform, influence millions of followers, or even build an AI-powered business valued at billions of dollars. The technological environment amplifies the reach of individual agency to unprecedented levels.
Yet this newfound power comes with risks. The same tools that enable creativity can also amplify misinformation, social fragmentation, and instability. Understanding how human minds navigate—and shape—this complex environment may be one of the central scientific challenges of our time.
Ultimately, Sorokin sees cultural psychology as a promising framework for tackling that challenge. By examining the interplay between mind, language, technology, and social structures, the field could help explain how societies evolve—and how individuals can guide that evolution toward positive outcomes.
If the argument is correct, the stakes are enormous. In a world increasingly built by algorithms and digital networks, the future may depend less on institutions alone—and more on the creative agency of individuals navigating the cultural systems they themselves help create.
And cultural psychology, once a niche academic field, could become one of the key lenses through which we understand that future.
In the Nutshell
- Cultural psychology must adapt to a technologically transformed society, especially the rise of AI.
- Human agency—our ability to act creatively and transform the world—is becoming more central to social change than traditional institutions.
- Culture today is best understood as a socio-technical environment shaped jointly by humans and digital systems.
- AI increasingly creates and distributes cultural content, altering how people learn, communicate, and make sense of reality.
- The human psyche should be viewed not only as avoiding harm, but also as capable of actively transforming environments and creating new social structures.