Mitigating Societal Cognitive Overload in the Age of AI: Challenges and Directions

Societal cognitive overload, driven by the deluge of inform ation and complexity in the AI age, poses a critical challenge to human well-being an d societal resilience. This paper argues that mitigating cognitive overload is not only essential for improving present-day life but also a crucial prerequisite fo r navigating the potential risks of advanced AI, including existential threats. W e exa mine how AI exacerbates cognitive overload through various mechanisms, incl uding information proliferation, algorithmic manipulation, automation anxiet ies, deregulation, and the erosion of meaning. The paper reframes the AI safety debate t o center on cognitive overload, highlighting its role as a bridge between near-te rm harms and long-term risks. It concludes by discussing potential institutional adaptations, research directions, and policy considerations that arise from adopti ng an overload-resilient perspective on human-AI alignment, suggesting pathways fo r future exploration rather than prescribing definitive solutions. W e stand at a precipice. Human societies are increasingly st ruggling to process the sheer volume and complexity of information in the digital age, a conditio n dramatically amplified by the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI). While Toffle r (1970) foresaw "future shock" from accelerating change and Eppler & Mengis (2004); Bawden & Robin son (2009) analyzed individual information overload, Byung-Chul Han, in his critique of ne oliberalism and technological domination (Han, 2017), argues that contemporary society faces a regime of technological domination that exploits and overwhelms the psyche. This exploitation and overwhelming of the psyche, now dramatically amplified by AI-driven information and comple xity, elevates information overload to a systemic crisis: societal cognitive overload .