By David Stephen

There is an information problem within the larger problem of drug addiction. Illegal drug users discuss experiences, feelings and addictions, but what information do drug users have about the mechanisms of mind for those feelings, experiences or addictiveness of the drugs? This guest essay on Irish Tech News looks at the role that AI can play in solving the information problem within the larger drug addiction problem.

NIH Brain Initiative Drugs effect on the mind

People that are chemically dependent or those living with substance use disorder often recount experiences before, during and after using illegal drugs. They sometimes discuss the state of feeling nothing, the state of elation, the calm, and so forth. Some ascribe the continuous use to what the drugs do for them. Some also feel helpless in being addicted, while many experience several negative effects in their social and occupational lives.

When a person takes a drug, what happens? This is not a question about a pathway or one [reward] chemical. This question means how drugs have an effect on the mind. For those that claim that drugs resolve their anxieties, how did the effect happen, even if it may not be true that drugs resolve anxiety? For those who claim that drugs solve their trauma, depression, and so forth, what is happening in the mind that can explain how that may have resulted?

This is where AI agents come in. To discuss, display, explain, present, and express every step process for different drugs [especially stimulants and sedatives] and why they seem to have effects. There is a lot of discussion about the lack of agency or intention against saying no to drug use or its ability to overpower the cautionary ability of the mind. How does this happen, and how can this be rebuilt?

AI agents

Information is often a deterrent for the mind. Information is also potent to seek alternatives. Information, where robust but simplified, can be useful enough to spur changes in people and society.

AI is already a powerhouse of information across knowledge areas. It also has information on drug biochemistry, but it does not have information on how the human mind works. It is possible to provide this new information in a way that would assist people living with substance use disorder to understand what is happening within, away from the opacity of the present, towards harm reduction and care.

From all the evidence in neuroscience till date, there are two direct candidates, conceptually, for the human mind, electrical and chemical signals of neurons. This means that all functions and their attributes are a result of the electrical and chemical signals.

So, it is possible to explain all drug effects within the mechanisms of the signals. Neurons, for example, are in clusters, according to evidence in neuroscience. It can be theorized that in clusters of neurons, electrical and chemical signals are in sets or in loops, where they interact. Also, in sets, electrical signals often have states with which they interact with chemical signals, which also have states. These [instantaneous] states become the grade or attributes that determine the extents or outcomes of the interactions.

For anything to affect the human mind, it has to have an effect on sets of electrical signals or on sets of chemical signals. This is a basis for which drug use can be explained, with displays of how stimulants work and how sedatives also work.

There are addictions beyond drugs that may include electronic applications, devices and so on. They also would have an effect on sets of electrical and chemical signals. There are situations where the intensity of electrical signals in interactions could be so high, or the volume of chemical signals, or one of the chemical signals in the set is so high that the space that is necessary for intent [to say no or hold], is covered, resulting in helplessness.

There are also states where some of the necessary depletion in some sets of chemical signals...