As AI systems become more capable, a lot of resources and effort are being put toward measuring their abilities. Researchers look at technical evaluation metrics, subject AIs to reasoning tests, track their throughput, and much more. But there’s one key metric that often gets overlooked, and it’s arguably the most important of all: What is AI doing to humans? Imran Khan leads psychosocial evaluation of AI at the nonprofit Center for Humane Technology. In a recent essay published on the organization’s Substack, Khan points out that we’re deploying AI tools capable of reshaping our cognition, relationships, and behavior, but with little systematic effort to measure the downstream impacts they’re having on us.

The push to look more closely at AI’s psychosocial effects is similar to debates that emerged around social media and its harms, but Khan believes AI could have even broader and more intimate effects. The focus on measuring AI performance and progress misses the question of whether the technology is ultimately helping humans flourish—or eroding some of our most fundamental capacities. IEEE Spectrum spoke with Khan about why AI evaluation is so narrowly focused, what meaningful…