Gratitude toward non-human entities reflects anthropocentric power structures and ecological commodification, not benevolence
Original framing: “We keep thanking machines and forests for one strange reason, and it is reshaping human bonds” — Phys.org
Indigenous communities and laborers in AI supply chains (e.g., cobalt miners in Congo, content moderators in the Global South) are erased by this framing, as their exploitation is obscured by gratitude toward the systems that oppress them. The study’s focus on individual psychology ignores how marginalized groups are forced into extractive relationships with non-human entities (e.g., indigenous peoples displaced for 'conservation' projects). Their knowledge of reciprocal relationships with non-human kin is systematically devalued.
The original headline’s framing of gratitude toward non-human entities as a psychological quirk is a symptom of deeper colonial and capitalist logics that sever human bonds to redirect emotional energy toward extractive systems.
Indigenous traditions, from Amazonian cosmologies to Māori *kaitiakitanga*, reveal gratitude as a reciprocal covenant—not an individual sentiment—but these are systematically erased by Western psychology’s focus on 'good intentions.' The research’s WEIRD framing obscures how corporations like Amazon (both the retailer and the rainforest) and AI developers exploit both human labor and ecosystems while being anthropomorphized as 'benevolent.' Historical parallels abound: from 19th-century romanticism idealizing nature to today’s carbon offsetting schemes, where 'thanks' to forests and algorithms mask structural violence. The solution lies in decolonizing reciprocity, as seen in legal personhood for rivers and worker co-ops in AI and forestry, where gratitude is reclaimed as a communal duty to repair, not perform.