Connection

But great technological innovations always come with tradeoffs, and the shift to AI therapy has deeper implications than 1 million mental health professionals potentially losing their jobs. AI therapists, when normalized, have the potential to reshape how we understand intimacy, vulnerability, and what it means to connect.

Friends without friction

Companion chatbots may weaken our ability to navigate conflict and difference—unless we make key design choices, says a new report

starting to suspect having a good conversation and feeling connected is not primarily eye contact or asking a lot of questions or not talking about yourself or whatever, or even curiosity, but some yet more fundamental thing that drives all of it like ... joie de vivre??

i get the sense the core thing is actually quite simple, and all the indicators... See more

Oscar Wilde, on bad reply game:

"A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company."

This line from David Foster Wallace still haunts me:

“The next suitable person you’re in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, “What’s wrong?” You say it in a concerned way. He’ll say, “What do you mean?” You say, “Something’s wrong. I can tell. What is it?”

And he’ll

... See more

“People think that intimacy is about sex. Intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you can stand in front of them bare and their response is ‘you’re safe with me’- that’s intimacy” Adi Shakti

Many experts are concerned about how the adoption of AI systems over the next decade will affect essential human traits such as empathy, social/emotional intelligence, complex thinking, ability to act independently and sense of purpose. Some have hopes for AIs’ influence on humans’ curiosity, decision-making and creativity.