Images as Activations: AI and the Manipulation of Perception

The text analyzes the evolution of the image from a tool for representing reality into an instrument of neural activation. Drawing on Trevor Paglen's theory, the author explains that seeing is a construction of the brain, which makes us vulnerable to precisely designed stimuli. Generative AI does not create art, but rather 'visual triggers' that bypass reflection and strike the reactive layers of the psyche. Contemporary image culture resembles 'mental Doritos' – content optimized for the neuroeconomics of attention, whose goal is not to convey truth or meaning, but to evoke a specific emotional or behavioral state. This transition to machine realism changes the role of the image from a mirror of the world into a remote control for the human nervous system.