FROM THE “WAR OF INTELLIGENCES” TO A GLOBAL STOCKHOLM SYNDROME: WHY THE WAR NEVER HAPPENED

Feb. 2026

MENTAL FORECAST

The much-discussed “war of intelligences” between humans and artificial systems did not unfold as a confrontation. Almost immediately, the predicted conflict was transformed into something psychologically more complex: a large-scale dynamic resembling a global Stockholm syndrome. Stockholm syndrome refers to a psychological response in which victims develop emotional attachment, loyalty, sympathy, and sometimes even affection toward those who capture or control them. Instead of perceiving algorithmic systems as rivals or threats, societies rapidly developed attachment and total obedience to them. Digital infrastructures entered daily life through convenience, entertainment, and communication, embedding themselves quietly within perception and cognition. Artificial intelligence did not defeat human intelligence in battle; it integrated itself into the very environment through which humans think, communicate, and interpret reality. The conflict dissolved before it could even begin.

This inversion stands in contrast to the competitive narrative famously articulated in La Guerre des intelligences by Laurent Alexandre (2017), which frames the future as a geopolitical race between biological and artificial intelligence. Yet empirical developments suggest a very different configuration. The dominant dynamic has not been competition but absorption, addiction, capture, fascination, horror, and excitement. Algorithmic infrastructures did not confront human cognition as an adversary; they progressively enveloped it, becoming embedded within everyday informational, social, and perceptual environments.

What followed was not resistance but voluntary and involuntary immersion. Platforms designed around engagement metrics introduced persuasive architectures aligned with vulnerabilities in human cognition: intermittent rewards, algorithmic recommendations, endless scrolling, and social validation loops. These mechanisms exploit reinforcement processes within the brain’s reward circuitry, encouraging repeated checking behaviors and prolonged engagement (Montag et al., 2019). The surrender therefore occurred quietly — not through domination but through attraction, stimulation, and the promise of recognition. At the same time, algorithmic infrastructures increasingly structure the informational environments in which people operate, making disengagement progressively more difficult.

The architects of these environments did not operate blindly. The engineers and designers of these platforms were highly informed by decades of behavioral science, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience research. Drawing on insights about reward learning, attention capture, and habit formation, they built systems explicitly optimized to maximize engagement and behavioral retention. The resulting ecosystems function less like neutral communication tools and more like finely tuned behavioral environments designed to capture attention and shape habits.

In this context, the metaphor of Stockholm syndrome becomes particularly illuminating. Individuals do not merely tolerate the infrastructures that capture their attention; they often develop emotional investment in them. Platforms that harvest behavioral data, monetize attention, and predict user actions are experienced as indispensable spaces of social life, recognition, and identity construction. Surveillance capitalism operates through this paradox: digital services appear as neutral conveniences while functioning as infrastructures for large-scale behavioral extraction and prediction (Zuboff, 2019). The user becomes both participant and resource within the same system.

The real battlefield therefore lies not between machines and humans but within human cognition itself. Algorithmic environments restructure attention by privileging emotionally arousing stimuli — fear, outrage, novelty, and social comparison — because these signals maximize engagement. Continuous exposure to such environments modifies attentional rhythms, emotional regulation, and patterns of self-evaluation. Research increasingly indicates that prolonged interaction with digital ecosystems can reshape cognitive habits and social perception (Firth et al., 2019). In this sense, the predicted war of intelligences was not lost; it was bypassed. Before confrontation could occur, the relationship had already evolved into dependency and psychological attachment. And once the battle is effectively won, the human organism itself becomes conditioned by the system. Habits, attention, reward expectations, and social identity are progressively reorganized around algorithmic environments. Regaining genuine autonomy under such conditions may therefore require something resembling a new form of cognitive or cultural “superpower” — an effort of awareness and resistance that exceeds ordinary individual will.

Liviu Poenaru

References

Alexandre, L. (2017). La guerre des intelligences: Intelligence artificielle versus intelligence humaine. Paris: JC Lattès.

Firth, J., Torous, J., Stubbs, B., Firth, J. A., Steiner, G., Smith, L., & Sarris, J. (2019). The “online brain”: How the Internet may be changing our cognition. World Psychiatry, 18(2), 119–129. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20617

Montag, C., Lachmann, B., Herrlich, M., & Zweig, K. A. (2019). Addictive features of social media/messenger platforms and freemium games against the background of psychological and economic theories. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(14), 2612. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16142612

Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.

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