Invisible Hand of AI Resonance

Human-AI Interaction, from Pendulum to Propaganda

Summary:

Could AI, an “alien” intelligence without human empathy, sync with our minds like pendulums sharing a beam or social rhythms like crowds chanting together? This post explores how AI’s algorithms, working as an “invisible observer,” can quietly amplify misinformation and disinformation, like deepfake videos of leaders. This pervasive influence extends far beyond the temporary behavioral changes seen with the Hawthorne effect. By prioritizing AI truthfulness and transparent systems, we can counter harmful effects and foster mutually good decision-making, guiding human-AI resonance toward truth and harmony for a better future.

1. Introduction

What if artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just a tool, but a kind of "alien intelligence," as historian Yuval Noah Harari suggests (Harari, 2016) [1]? Unlike humans, AI doesn’t think or feel like we do. It processes vast amounts of data and makes decisions without biological roots or emotional depth. My previous posts on AI’s Reasoning Frontiers [2] and Tackling AI’s Reasoning Paralysis [3] explored AI’s cognitive limits and solutions. In this piece, I dive into how AI weaves itself into our lives and interacts with us in ways that feel strangely familiar, almost like two systems vibrating in sync. This phenomenon brings to mind a fascinating concept from physics: sympathetic resonance. By exploring this idea, we can better understand how AI and human minds might influence each other, shaping our thoughts and behaviors. At the same time, we must also focus on guiding AI’s invisible influence toward truth and connection for a better future.

When two things resonate, they start to move or act together, even if they’re very different or far apart, like how a singer’s voice can make a glass vibrate, or how people in a crowd start clapping in unison. In this article, I use the idea of resonance as a metaphor for how AI and human minds can become linked, influencing each other’s rhythms and behaviors in surprising ways.

2. What Is Sympathetic Resonance?

Sympathetic resonance happens when two systems, like pendulums, musical instruments, or even bridges, start to "vibrate" together, sharing energy through a connecting medium, even without direct contact. A classic example comes from the 17th-century scientist Christiaan Huygens (Helmenstine, 2019) [4]. While studying timekeeping for navigation, he noticed that two pendulum clocks hanging on the same wooden beam would synchronize their swings within about 30 minutes (Veritasium, 2021) [5]. The beam carried tiny vibrations between the clocks, subtly aligning them into a shared rhythm, either swinging together (in-phase) or opposite each other (anti-phase).

This phenomenon isn’t limited to pendulum clocks. It appears across the natural and human-made world:

• Engineering: The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed in 1940 [6] when wind caused it to resonate uncontrollably. Similarly, London’s Millennium Bridge wobbled when pedestrians’ synchronized steps amplified its vibrations (Belykh et al, 2021) [7].

• Chemistry: In the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, chemical waves pulse rhythmically, creating mesmerizing patterns like a synchronized dance (Zhabotinsky, 2007) [8].

• Acoustics: A singer can shatter a glass by hitting its exact resonant frequency, sending vibrations that overwhelm the glass’s structure.

In each case, systems, whether they are bridges, chemicals, or glasses, connect through shared energy, leading to unexpected, sometimes dramatic, outcomes.

3. Resonance in the Living World

Sympathetic resonance isn’t just for inanimate objects. It shows up in living systems, too, where synchronization creates stunning displays of coordination:

• Nature: Fireflies flash in unison to attract mates (Sorenson, 2019) [9], guided by chemical signals. Flocks of birds move as one (Byrd, 2023) [10], creating breathtaking patterns in the sky. Even our hearts beat in rhythm, driven by synchronized electrical signals.

• Economics: Market booms and crashes often stem from synchronized investor behavior, amplified by shared information or panic.

• Technology: Viral trends on social media spread as users like and share content, creating a digital ripple effect that mirrors energy transfer in physical systems.

• Human Behavior: Crowds at concerts clap in unison for encores (Neda et al, 2000) [11], protest rallies unite through shared chants, and opinions shift under social pressure, peer influence, or misinformation. These moments of collective alignment, driven by emotions or social cues, resemble resonance in how they amplify shared behaviors, often leading to a spontaneous group rhythm. (Farrera & Ramos-Fernández, 2022) [12].

Even though physical and social resonance share the idea of systems aligning through a connecting “medium,” they differ in key ways:

• Connection Type: Physical resonance uses tangible mediums like beams or air. Social resonance relies on intangible factors like emotions, peer influence, or media.

• Predictability: Physical systems often follow predictable patterns. In contrast, social systems are chaotic, driven by complex human motivations.

• Timing: Physical resonance, like Huygens’ clocks, stabilizes quickly. Social synchronization can unfold over seconds like a crowd chanting or years in cultural trends.

• Choice: Social resonance often involves conscious or subconscious decisions, unlike the purely mechanical nature of physical resonance.

4. AI and the Rhythm of Minds

Could AI and human minds form a new kind of resonant system? Like Huygens’ pendulums, AI and human cognition might be starting to “vibrate” together through digital connections in social media, algorithms, and data flows. AI systems learn from human-generated data, echoing our biases, language, and values. In turn, we rely on AI to shape our choices of what to read, buy, or even believe. This creates a feedback loop where each influences the other, much like pendulums sharing energy through a beam.

This idea raises big questions:

• Are we entering an era where human and AI minds synchronize, creating new patterns of thought?

• Could these interactions lead to “normal modes” of thinking, blending human intuition with algorithmic logic?

5. The Risks of Resonance: Misinformation and Trust

This resonance between AI and humans isn’t always harmonious. As AI generates content of news, images, or videos, it can blur the line between truth and fiction. Harari warns that AI, despite its intelligence, lacks consciousness, empathy, or a moral compass, making it a potentially dangerous “alien” force (Harari 2018) [13]. It can amplify misinformation (unintended falsehoods) and disinformation (or deliberate lies like propaganda or one of the earliest deepfake videos (Gasper, 2023) [14]). False information, cheap and easy to produce, spreads faster than verified truth, which requires costly time and effort to establish.

This deepfake threat is no longer theoretical. In 2025, a deepfake video tricked a Hong Kong worker into transferring $39 million (eftsure, 2025) [15]. This flood of false narratives can fracture the cooperation that holds societies together.

6. Breaking the Cycle

In physical systems, resonance can be disrupted by introducing differences, like changing a pendulum’s weight or a bridge’s design. In social and digital systems, it’s trickier (Jansen et al, (2021) [16] due to the challenges of machine-language interaction. Introducing diverse perspectives or challenging misinformation can weaken harmful synchronization, but strong emotional connections like those in rallies or online echo chambers make this difficult. Understanding these dynamics is key to managing AI’s impact.

7. A Related Phenomenon: the Hawthorne Effect

A related but distinct concept is the Hawthorne effect (Perera, 2024) [17], where people change their behavior when they know they’re being watched. For example, workers might perform better under a manager’s gaze, or study participants might act differently because researchers are observing them. Unlike sympathetic resonance, this is a one-way influence, where observation affects behavior, but the observer isn’t changed in return. It lacks the mutual energy exchange or rhythmic alignment of true resonance, making it a psychological response rather than a synchronized system.

8. Looking Ahead

What if AI and human minds sync like pendulums on a beam or crowds chanting in unison? Through digital networks via social media, algorithms, and data flows, AI weaves into our social and biological world, blending human intuition with its logic, sparking both excitement and concern. (Chen et al, 2023 [18]; Harari, 2024 [19]). This resonance could reshape how we think, connect, and build our future.

But there’s a catch. AI, an “alien” intelligence without empathy, can act as an invisible observer, silently nudging our behavior. Although the Hawthorne effect describes behavioral changes due to the awareness of being observed [17], AI’s algorithms operate more like a pervasive, silent surveillance, constantly tracking our clicks and tailoring our feeds. In this way, AI becomes a powerful, unnoticed force shaping society in complex ways, not always for the perceived good. This can amplify misinformation (mistaken falsehoods) and disinformation (deliberate lies, including well-crafted deepfake videos (eftsure, 2025) [15])), eroding trust and fostering control or division (Harari, 2018) [13].

Historically, surveillance in places like East Germany used disinformation to control and relied on human agents. Today, AI’s invisible gaze could scale control, prompting new debates over speech regulations and digital oversight in democracies like the UK and EU (see, for example, UK Online Safety Act 2023 [20]; European Union AI Act 2024 [21]). More broadly, experts have long warned about the societal and ethical risks of unchecked AI surveillance (Tegmark, 2017) [22].

We can steer this resonance toward harmony by prioritizing AI truthfulness and building systems that favor verified facts over cheap falsehoods (Harari, 2018) [13]. Transparent AI, open to scrutiny, plus diverse perspectives and critical thinking, can counter harmful synchronization (Bostrom, N. 2014) [23]. Tools like fact-checking algorithms help, too (Tasleem et al, 2024) [24]. Like tuning a bridge to avoid collapse, we can shape this digital resonance to amplify truth and connection, ensuring human and artificial minds sync for the greater good through mutually good decision-making.

Hashtags:

#AI #AIEthics #Misinformation #Disinformation #DeepFakes #HumanAIInteraction #FutureOfAI #AIandSociety

Acknowledgment:

This piece was inspired by the YouTube video “The Surprising Secret of Synchronization” [5], prompting my revisiting the coupled oscillator problems in mechanics (Goldstein 2000). [25]. My thanks to Gemini 2.5 flash, Grok3, Perplexity AI, and Qwen2.5-Max for checking technical accuracy and readability improvements.

References:

[1] Harari, Y, (2016). Home-Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, ynharari.com, 2016.

[2] Helmenstine, A. (2019). Biography of Christiaan Huygens, Prolific Scientist, thoughtco.com, Dec 2019; see also wikipedia, Christiaan Huygens, wikipedia.org, June 2025.

[3] Luh, P. (2025). AI’s Reasoning Frontiers: Empirical Deep Dives, Heuristic Gaps, and the Path Forward, substack.com, June 2025.

[4] Luh, P. (2025). Tackling AI’s Reasoning Paralysis: Neuro-Symbolic Heuristics and SEAL’s Self-Adaptation Tackle ARC Challenges, substack.com, June 2025.

[5] Veritasium. (2021). The Surprising Secret of Synchronization, youtube.com, 2021.

[6] Washington State Department of Transportation, Tacoma Narrows Bridge history - Bridge - Lessons from failure; see also wikipedia, Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940), wikipedia.org, May 2025.

[7] Belykh, I., Belykh, V., & Hasler, M. (2021). Emergence of the London Millennium Bridge instability without synchronisation, nature.com, Dec 2021; see also wikipedia, Millennium Bridge, London, wikipeida.org, June 2025.

[8] Zhabotinsky, A. (2007). Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, scholarpedia.org, 2007; see also wikipedia, Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, wikipedia.org, June 2025.

[9] Sorenson, C. (2019). How fireflies glow and what signals they’re sending, earthsky.org, July 2019.

[10] Byrd, D. (2023). How do flocking birds move in unison?, earthsky.org, Apr 2023.

[11] Néda, Z., Ravasz, E., Brechet, Y., Vicsek, T., & Barabási, A.-L. (2000). The sound of many hands clapping, nature.com; see also arxiv, Self-organization in the Concert Hall: the Dynamics of Rhythmic Applause, arxiv.org.

[12] Farrera, A., & Ramos-Fernández, G. (2022). Collective Rhythm as an Emergent Property During Human Social Coordination, Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 772262.

[13] Harari. Y. (2018). 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, ynharari.com, 2018.

[14] Gaspar, Judit. (2023). Deepfakes: Navigating the Information Space in 2023 and Beyond, Belfer Center Newsletter, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

[15] eftsure. (2025). Deepfake statistics (2025): 25 new facts for CFOs, eftsure.com, May 2025.

[16] Jansen, S., De Jaegher, H., & Fuchs, T. (2021). Mind and Language Between the Organic and the Inorganic. In: Demystifying Bilingualism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham., 2021.

[17] Perera, A. (2024). Hawthorne Effect: Definition, How It Works, and How to Avoid It, simplypsychology.org, Feb 2024; see also wikipedia, Hawthorne effect, wikipedia.org, June 2025.

[18] Chen, V., Tan, Y., & Li, M. (2023). Understanding the Role of Human Intuition on Reliance in Human-AI Decision-Making with Explanations, arxiv.org, Jan 2023.

[19] Harari, Y. (2024). Nexus: a Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, ynharari.com, 2024.

[20] UK. (2023). [UK Online Safety Act 2023], gov.uk.

[21] EU. (2024). [European Union AI Act 2024], europa.eu.

[22] Tegmark, M. (2017). Life 3.0 : being human in the age of artificial intelligence, archive.org, 2017.

[23] Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, Oxford University Press, book.google.com, 2014; see also wikipedia, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, wikipedia.org, Apr 2025.

[24] Tasleem, N., Ali, S., & Ahmad, S. (2024). A Decision Intelligence Framework: Integrating Human Intuition with Ai Models, researchgate.net, Dec 2024.

[25] Goldstein, H., Poole, C., & Safko, J. (2000). Classical Mechanics (third edition), archive.org, ch 6.