“Our brain works very well in scarcity, but not in abundance”

Artificial intelligence (AI) seems very intelligent to us, but it is not yet, because it does not yet have awareness of itself. It is true that it can surpass us in certain functions, just as a car surpasses us in speed. And it is also true that a door is opening and that we must be careful and know where we are going so as not to end up like in ‘Blade Runner“, says Jesús Matos, psychologist, lecturer, writer and teacher who has more than 15 years of experience as a health psychologist and director of In Mental Balancea firm that has been awarded as the best resource for emotional support and clinical psychology in Spain in 2022, 2023 and 2024 by ‘Global Health Promotion‘, a British magazine specialising in health. Professor of Therapist Skills in the Master’s in Clinical Psychology at the Instituto Superior de Estudios Psicológicos, he has been named one of the best speakers of 2022 and 2024 by Thinking Heads.

With these credentials, it goes without saying that Matos knows what he’s talking about. And he talks especially about mental health and how, despite all of the above, artificial intelligence does put us in a moment critical. He says this in his latest book, ‘The species on the edge of the abyss’ (ed. Deusto), where the expert gives some necessary guidelines “to change course in time and avoid the disaster“.

After the pandemic crisis, Matos began to question the causes that have led to an increase in dissatisfaction with life since today the largest number of cases of problems are documented mental health of history. Does this have to do with artificial intelligence? Is it to blame? “I think it has more to do with the technological revolution and above all with the social networks“He answers. “These are much more precise when it comes to capturing and maintaining our attention, constantly showing us new content that impacts our desire systems because they generate dopamine. We are replacing the relations social interactions with a substitute that takes up more and more of our time. And that does impact our mental health. For a very simple, but at the same time very complex reason: we are primates, social mammals, who We evolve in a very different environment than today. The problem is that the environment is very different and our body tries to adaptwhich leads to a whole series of emotional problems that are basically nothing more than attempts to adapt to the environment,” says the expert.

He also acknowledges that there is a certain bias in stating that there has never been such a large number of mental health problems. “Now they are more in focus, they are detected. We cannot forget that 20 years ago it was taboo go to the psychologist; now on the contrary, there is that little point of show off to go to therapyand that’s very good,” he warns. However, Matos brings up a study carried out last year, in 29 countries and with a sample of 150,000 people, whose conclusions maintain that one in two adults will suffer from a mental disorder before the age of 75. “If this is the case, it means that we are in an environment that is not the best for us, on a natural level,” he says.

Especially for the womenwho are much more affected by emotional problems. “It is more frequent, in a proportion of almost three women for every man. There is a certain predisposition; social, genetic…, the reason is difficult to isolate,” he adds.

In any case, everything indicates that the environment in which we move is what most influences our emotional health. “Of course, genes also have a condition; in fact, different studies support that it is in mental problems that they have the greatest importance, above the cancerthe heart attacks and the ictus“However, they are the result of a mixture of environment and genetics. We cannot do anything about the latter, we come into the world with it; but we can act on the environment,” he says.

And we must do so, because it turns out that it is not very favorable. The ESEMed project, a study on the prevalence of mental disorders A study of the general population carried out in seven countries of the European Union revealed that in 2008 they affected approximately 20% of the population in Spain, which then placed our country meritoriously above the European average. Less than two decades later, the figure is not as high. hopeful: Now we are talking about 50%. An increase that responds, in Matos’ opinion, to the dissatisfaction which causes us the ever-increasing distance between our existence and what was originally the natural life of a human being.

The alarming rise in loneliness

As a first example, our daily life sedentary; it is difficult for us to do physical exercise. The second is due to the lonelinessa problem that is getting worse. “The survey data are alarming, the profile of the person who feels alone is no longer that of a little old manwhich also. Now it affects a lot youths “between 16 and 24 years old,” says Matos. “If you put a chimpanzee alone in a cage, it will probably have Emotional problems, because it is a social animal. It is what is happening to us, but without us realizing it,” warns the expert. Loneliness, sedentary lifestyle and a third factor that introduces into the conversation: the reduction of leisure time, something decisive in the state of mind of the human being, and which is caused by an “increasingly precarious where everything costs a lot of money.”

According to Matos, the emotional fragility part of the mental mechanisms that make us relegate well-being to the last positions on the list of our priorities. “We are in a society where we are not able to get bored nor to avoid looking at the mobile phone at all hours. We live in a continuous stimulation that affects our attention and intolerance to frustration. Little by little, this is undermining our well-being. The key is that we confuse pleasure with well-being; the first is quick but very ephemeral, the second is something that is achieved much more in the long term, and we relegate it, we mortgagebecause it is not immediate,” he says.

Adapting to abundance

And here the doubt: but aren’t the mechanisms that have made us evolve and become the dominant species“The problem,” Matos insists, “is that in an environment of shortageas was prehistory, our brain works very well, but in one of abundancelike the one we live in now, no.” To prove it, another fact: “In the natural state there are no obese animals; on the contrary, in Western societies, in the first world, obesity is a very serious problem.”

Speaking of solutions, the expert points to using “the artificial intelligence to know through scientific research what is good for us as a species; if not, we will go crazy, to whatever emerges, and that will have consequences“And what is it that suits us?” I ask him. “Certainly, everything that resembles our conditions in nature. In the Kalahari DesertIn one of the most inhospitable places on the planet, Bushmen tribes spend only three hours a day gathering the resources they need to survive. The rest of the time they spend socializing, a very different way of life to that of the Western world. Everything points to the fact that in this part, in the first world, we will use the tools of artificial intelligence to produce even more, but perhaps it makes more sense replace with it some of the things we do in our daily lives and thus be able to enjoy more free time, have a little time to rest, to be with my family…, to promote, in short, the Connection real between people, which is what makes us human.”

The clue so that AI does not end our species lies in the fact that “technological development is above the side effects that generates, which will be of such magnitude that not even we imagine; if that line is not crossed, everything will be fine. We need an ethics of behavior that helps us alleviate those potential dangerswhich can come from anywhere.”

What should we do in this scenario to take care of our mental health and not relegate our well-being to the bottom of the list? priorities? “The vision individualistic Mental health is very good, what you can do to improve. And that is clear: having a more or less adapted life, doing sports, having friends, frequent social contact, some hobby…, everything that has to do with management emotions will do us good. But, in the end, it is not an individual issue, it is much more collective It is a bit selfish to blame people who suffer from a disorder, those who have emotional problems, when it is true that the conditions that surround them surely influence and mark their mental health much more than doing mindfulness every afternoon,” he concludes.