On 24 March 2025, a meeting of the Eurolibrary took place, an event envisaged within the framework of the implementation of the project ‘European Studies for Technical Specialities at Lviv Polytechnic National University (EUSTS)’, which is implemented with the support of the EU Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Programme, activity: Eurolibrary series.
The speaker of the event was Petro Sukhorolsky, PhD in Law, Associate Professor of the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Lviv Polytechnic National University; author of the book ‘Fundamentals of Futurology’ (2021), as well as numerous publications on human rights in the digital era, data protection, and the challenges of the information society; member of the World Futures Studies Federation; author of research on the impact of information technology on human rights and international law; participant in the international Erasmus+ Jean Monnet project.
The topic of the Eurolibrary meeting is ‘The collapse of personal autonomy: the dark futures of artificial intelligence’. It is worth noting that the topic raised by Petro Sukhorolskyi aroused considerable interest among students, as the event was attended by about a hundred participants.
During the Eurolibrary meeting, the speaker first of all drew attention to the interpretation of what personal autonomy is, stressing that it is a fundamental value for our civilisation, but we rarely think about it. People are much more likely to discuss freedom and its limitations. The difference between freedom and autonomy can be felt if we compare two of the most famous dystopias - by J. Orwell and O. Huxley. In Orwell's dystopia, there is neither freedom nor autonomy, but only coercion and violence. And so it may seem that autonomy and freedom are identical. However, in Huxley's dystopia, the difference between autonomy and freedom becomes apparent. In such a society, there is virtually no direct violence and a high level of formal freedom. At the same time, autonomy is minimised through sophisticated and constant manipulation, and it is the impossibility of personal autonomy, even in a place remote from other people, that drives the main character of the novel to suicide.
Petro Sukhorolsky noted that artificial intelligence in its current implementation mostly negatively affects the three main conditions for personal autonomy, which are: 1) the presence of mental abilities in people that allow them to be autonomous, 2) an adequate list of available options, and 3) relative independence that excludes coercion or manipulation. Firstly, people at the behest of technology companies evaluate AI based on unfounded myths about its ‘greatness’ and ‘superhuman’ nature, but not on technical parameters, as any technology should be evaluated. Secondly, in just a few years, AI has already helped to fill the information space with countless surrogate and secondary content that has nothing to do with real diversity and creativity. Only those who know what to look for can find worthy alternatives. Thirdly, AI opens up a new huge Pandora's Box of high-tech manipulation of people in the interests of business and authoritarian authorities.
At the same time, Petro Sukhorolsky presented to the students a recent global study by the Financial Times on the rapid decline in human intelligence since 2010, the main reason for which is probably social media, a new content format, an endless stream of videos and manipulative algorithms.
The speaker paid special attention to the legal protection of personal autonomy in Europe, in particular, to the example of the EU and Council of Europe regulations on AI regulation.
At the end of the Eurolibrary meeting, he recommended students to read the following books: his own work ‘Fundamentals of Futurology’, as well as works by Z. Bauman and L. Donskis ‘Fluid Evil. Life Without Alternatives,’ Lewis Mumford's The Myth of the Machine, and Joseph Raz's The Moral Foundations of Freedom.
The EUSTS project team is sincerely grateful to Petro Sukhorolsky for his excellent speech and time, as well as to all the participants of the Eurolibrary meeting, and continues to work on preparing other, equally interesting events on the current topics of Ukraine's European integration and cooperation with the European Union.