Thought provoking

Esther Perel on Why A.I. Intimacy Feels Safe but Isn’t Real

Esther Perel on Why A.I. Intimacy Feels Safe but Isn’t Real

Perel, a renowned psychotherapist, doesn’t really think society can — or should — fall in love with a machine.

AI can make it easier to pass tests but it doesn’t do anything about the actual, magical transformation of learning. The AI student is forever a tenant, never an owner, of their curiosity. It’s the Ozempic of learning—it thinks that intaking knowledge is the same as learning, like glueing paper wings onto a caterpillar and calling it a butterfly.

J.R.R. Tolkien, speaking in 1939, named a clarifying power within what he called fairy stories: recovery, the ability to see the world as it actually is rather than through the “drab blur” of familiarity. Seeing the internet as a fairyland — an otherworld with its own logic — isn’t about mystifying technology. It’s about seeing it sharply, as the... See more

“It’s almost impossible for fragile underground scenes to grow, get nurtured, and take root, especially when we move at light speed.

You can’t call it the “online world” if you never leave your feed. If your entire internet life happens inside TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, or Twitter, you’re simply mall-walking, and malls are fine: predictable, climate-controlled, food courts and chain stores on every corner, but don’t mistake the mall for the city. The city is bigger,... See more

Remember when Trump won and everyone was suddenly talking about podcasts (Trump won because he went on them, apparently) rather than policy? As we focus on how marketing is done, substantive questions of the world itself get sidelined.

Implicit in this focus on marketing is a focus on everyone but oneself. What will politically-moderate strangers... See more